I>35vlwwftHco 


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J\A.ichad  Ernest  Sadler' 

llmvemtu  Colleae-^ 

Oxford 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


THE  REFORM  OF  EDUCATION 


THE  RLFORM  OF 
EDUCATION 

BY 

GIOVANNI  GENTILE 


AUTHORIZED  TRANSLATION  BY 

DINO  BIGONGIARI 

With  an  Introduction  by 
BENEDETTO  CROCE 


LONDON:  BLNN  BROTHLR5,  LIMITED 

8  BOUVERIE  5TREET.  E.  C.  4 

1923 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,    BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACE  AND   COMPANY,   INC. 


PRINTED    IN    THE    U.  S.  A.   BY 

THE    OUINN    a    BOOEN    COMPANY 

RAHWAY.    N.    J 


t>c<rcr'.t;on 
Lihiavy 


CONTENTS 

PASS 


Introduction 

CHAPTER                                                                                                                                        '  '*" 

I    Education  and  Nationality  ....  3 

II    Education  and  Personality  .       .       .       .  18 

III  The  Fundamental  Antinomy  of  Education  40 

IV  Realism  and  Idealism  in  the  Concept  of 

Culture 63 

V  The  Spirituality  of  Culture  ...  85 
VI    The  Attributes  of  Culture  .       .       .       .110 

VII    The  Bias  of  Realism 139 

VIII    The  Unity  of  Education      .       .       .       .166 

IX    Character  and  Physical  Education           .  192 

X    The  Ideal  OF  Education 219 

XI    Conclusion 246 


O  ^/W  0*9_t5|(<^ 


NOTE 

Shortly  after  Trieste  fell  into  Italian  hands,  a  series  of 
lectures  was  arranged  for  the  school  teachers  of  the  city,  in 
order  to  welcome  them  to  their  new  duties  as  citizens  and 
officials  of  Italy.  The  task  of  opening  the  series  was  assigned 
to  Giovanni  Gentile,  Professor  of  Philosophy  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Rome,  who  delivered  the  lectures  which  constitute 
the  present  volume.  At  my  request  Signor  Gentile  has  re- 
written the  first  chapter,  eliminating  some  of  the  more  local 
of  the  allusions  which  the  nature  of  the  original  occasion 
called  forth,  and  Senatore  Croce  has  very  generously  contrib- 
uted his  illuminating  Introduction.  The  volume  as  it  stands 
is  more  than  a  treatise  on  education:  it  is  at  one  and  the 
same  time  an  introduction  to  the  thought  of  one  of  the 
greatest  of  living  philosophers,  and  an  introduction  to  the 
study  of  all  philosophy.  If  the  teachers  of  Trieste  were  able 
to  understand  and  to  enjoy  a  philosophic  discussion  of  their 
chosen  work,  why  should  not  the  teachers  of  England  and 
America? 

J.  E.  S. 


INTRODUCTION 

The  author  of  this  book  has  been  working  in  the 
same  field  with  me  for  over  a  quarter  of  a  century,  ever 
since  the  time  when  we  undertook — he  a  very  young 
man,  and  I  somewhat  his  senior — to  shake  Italy  out 
of  the  doze  of  naturalism  and  positivism  back  to  ideal- 
istic philosophy;  or,  as  it  would  be  better  to  say,  to 
philosophy  pure  and  simple,  if  indeed  philosophy  is 
always  idealism. 

Together  we  founded  a  review,  the  Critica,  and  kept 
it  going  by  our  contributions;  together  we  edited  col- 
lections of  classical  authors;  and  together  we  engaged 
in  many  lively  controversies.  And  it  seems  indeed  as 
though  we  really  succeeded  in  laying  hold  of  and  again 
firmly  re-establishing  in  Italy  the  tradition  of  philo- 
sophical studies,  thus  welding  a  chain  which  evidently 
has  withstood  the  strain  and  destructive  fury  of  the 
war  and  its  afterclaps. 

By  this  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  our  gradual 
achievements  were  the  result  of  a  definite  preconcerted 
plan.  Our  work  was  the  spontaneous  consequence  of 
our  spontaneous  mental  development  and  of  the  spon- 
taneous agreement  of  our  minds.  And  therefore  this 
common  task,  too,  gradually  becoming  differentiated 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

in  accordance  with  the  peculiarities  of  our  tempera- 
ments, our  tendencies,  and  our  attitudes,  resulted 
in  a  kind  of  division  of  labour  between  us.  So  that 
whereas  I  by  preference  have  devoted  my  attention 
to  the  history  of  literature,  Gentile  has  dedicated  him- 
self more  particularly  to  the  history  of  philosophy  and 
especially  of  Italian  philosophy,  not  only  as  a  thinker 
but  as  a  scholar  too,  and  as  a  philologist.  He  may  be 
said  to  have  covered  the  entire  field  from  the  Middle 
Ages  to  the  present  time  by  his  works  on  Scholasticism 
in  Italy,  on  Bruno,  on  Telesio,  on  Renaissance  philos- 
ophy, on  Neapolitan  philosophy  from  Genovesi  to  Gal- 
luppi,  on  Rosmini,  on  Gioberti,  and  on  the  philosophical 
writers  from  1850  to  1900.  And  though  his  com- 
prehensive History  of  Italian  Philosophy,  published  in 
parts,  is  far  from  being  finished,  the  several  sections 
of  it  have  been  elaborated  and  cast  in  the  various  mon- 
ographs which  I  have  just  mentioned. 

In  addition  to  this,  Gentile  has  been  devoting  special 
attention  to  religious  problems.  He  took  a  very  im- 
portant part  in  the  inquiry  into  and  criticism  of  "mod- 
ernism," the  hybrid  nature  of  which  he  laid  bare, 
exposing  both  the  inner  contradictions  and  the  scanty 
sincerity  of  the  movement.  His  handling  of  this  ques- 
tion was  shown  to  be  effective  by  the  fact,  among 
others,  that  the  authors  of  the  encyclical  Pascendi, 
which  brought  upon  Modernism  the  condemnation  of 
the  Church,  availed  themselves  of  the  sharp  edge  of 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

Gentile's  logical   arguments,  prompted   by  scientific 
loyalty  and  dictated  by  moral  righteousness. 

Finally,  and  in  a  more  close  connection  with  the 
present  work,  it  will  be  remembered  that  Gentile  has 
done  away  with  the  chaotic  pedagogy  of  the  positiv- 
istic  school,  and  has  also  definitely  criticised  the  edu- 
cational theory  of  Herbart.  As  far  back  as  1900 
he  published  a  monograph  of  capital  importance,  in 
which  he  showed  that  pedagogy  in  so  far  as  it  is 
philosophical  resolves  itself  without  residuum  into  the 
philosophy  of  the  spirit;  for  the  science  of  the  spirit's 
education  can  not  but  be  the  science  of  the  spirit's 
development, — of  its  dialectics,  of  its  necessity. 

Indeed,  we  owe  it  to  Gentile  that  Italian  pedagogy 
has  attained  in  the  present  day  a  simplicity  and  a  depth 
of  concepts  unknown  elsewhere.  In  Italy,  not  educa- 
tional science  alone,  but  the  practice  of  it  and  its 
political  aspects  have  been  thoroughly  recast  and  amply 
developed.  And  this,  too,  is  due  pre-eminently  to  the 
work  of  Gentile.  His  authority  therefore  is  power- 
fully felt  in  schools  of  all  grades,  for  he  has  lived  in- 
tensely the  life  of  the  school  and  loves  it  dearly. 

In  addition  to  these  differences  arising  from  our 
division  of  labour,  others  may  of  course  be  noticed, 
and  they  are  to  be  found  in  the  form  that  philosophical 
doctrines  have  taken  on  in  each  of  us.  Identity  is 
impossible  in  this  field,  for  philosophy,  like  art,  is 
closely  bound  up  with  the  personality  of  the  thinker. 


X  INTRODUCTION 

with  his  spiritual  interests,  and  with  his  experiences  of 
life.  There  is  never  true  identity  except  in  the  so- 
called  "philosophical  school,"  which  indicates  the  death 
of  a  philosophy,  in  the  same  way  that  the  poetical 
school  proclaims  death  in  poetry. 

And  so  it  has  come  about  that  our  general  conception 
of  philosophy  as  simple  philosophy  of  the  spirit — of 
the  subject,  and  never  of  nature,  or  of  the  object — has 
developed  a  peculiar  stress  in  Gentile,  for  whom  philos- 
ophy is  above  all  that  point  in  which  every  abstraction 
is  overcome  and  submerged  in  the  concreteness  of  the 
act  of  Thought;  whereas  for  me  philosophy  is  essen- 
tially methodology  of  the  one  real  and  concrete  Think- 
ing— of  historical  Thinking.  So  that  while  he  strongly 
emphasises  unity,  I  no  less  energetically  insist  on  the 
distinction  and  dialectics  of  the  forms  of  the  spirit  as 
a  necessary  formation  of  the  methodology  of  historical 
judgment.  But  of  this  enough,  especially  since  the 
reader  can  only  become  interested  in  these  differences 
after  he  has  acquired  a  more  advanced  knowledge  of 
contemporary  Italian  philosophy. 

I  am  convinced  that  the  translation  and  popularisa- 
tion of  Gentile's  work  will  contribute  to  the  toilsome 
formation  of  that  consciousness,  of  that  system  of 
convictions,  of  that  moral  and  mental  faith  which  is 
the  profound  need  of  our  times.  For  our  age,  eager 
and  anxious  for  Faith,  is  perhaps  not  yet  completely 
resigned  to  look  for  the  new  creed  of  humanity  there 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

where  alone  it  may  be  found,  where  by  firm  resolve  it 
may  be  secured — in  pure  Thought.  Clear-sighted  ob- 
servers have  perhaps  not  failed  to  notice  that  the  World 
War,  in  addition  to  every  thing  else,  has  been  a  strife 
of  religions,  a  clash  of  conflicting  conceptions  of  life, 
a  struggle  of  opposed  philosophies.  It  is  surely  not 
the  duty  of  thinkers  to  settle  economic  and  political 
contentions  by  ineffective  appeals  to  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man;  but  it  is  rather  their  duty  to  com- 
pose mental  differences  and  antagonisms,  and  thus 
form  the  new  faith  of  humanity — a  new  Christianity 
or  a  new  Humanism,  as  we  may  wish  to  call  it.  Such 
a  faith  will  certainly  not  be  spared  the  conflicts  from 
which  ancient  Christianity  itself  was  not  free;  but  it 
may  reasonably  be  hoped  that  it  will  rescue  us  from 
intellectual  anarchy,  from  unbridled  individualism, 
from  sensualism,  from  scepticism,  from  pessimism,  from 
every  aberration  which  for  a  century  and  a  half  has 
been  harassing  the  soul  of  man  and  the  society  of  man- 
kind under  the  name  of  Romanticism. 

Benedetto  Croce. 
Rome,  April,  1921. 


THE  REFORM  OF  EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  I 

EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

Participation  on  the  part  of  elementary  school  teach- 
ers in  the  work  and  studies  of  the  Universities  has 
always  seemed  to  me  to  constitute  a  real  need  of  culture 
and  of  primary  education.  For  the  elementary  school, 
by  the  very  nature  of  the  professional  training  of  its 
teachers,  is  exposed  to  a  grave  danger  from  which  it 
must  be  rescued  if  we  mean  to  keep  it  alive. 

The  training  of  the  elementary  school  teacher  tends 
to  be  dogmatic.  True  it  is  that  vigilant  individuality 
and  passionate  love  for  his  exquisitely  spiritual  calling 
impel  the  school  teacher  to  an  untiring  criticism  of  his 
methods,  of  his  actual  teaching,  and  of  the  life  of  the 
school  which  he  directs  and  promotes.  But  neverthe- 
less in  consequence  of  those  very  studies  by  which  he 
has  prepared  himself  to  be  an  elementary  instructor, 
he  is  led  to  look  upon  that  learning  which  constitutes 
his  mental  equipment  and  the  foundation  of  all  his 
future  teaching,  as  something  quite  finished,  rounded 
out,  enclosed  in  definite  formulas,  rules,  and  laws,  all 
of  which  have  been  ascertained  once  for  all  and  are  no 
longer  susceptible  of  ulterior  revision.  He  looks  upon 
this  learning  not  as  a  developing  organism,  but  as 

3 


4  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

something  definitely  moulded  and  stereotyped.  From 
this  the  conclusion  is  drawn  that  a  certain  kind  of 
knowledge  may  serve  as  a  corner  stone  for  the  whole 
school  edifice.  Since  his  discipline  and  his  teaching 
consist  mainly  of  elements  which  because  of  their  ab- 
stractness  miss  the  renovating  flow  of  spiritual  life,  the 
teacher  slowly  but  surely  ends  by  shutting  himself  up 
in  a  certain  number  of  ideas,  which  are  final  as  far 
as  he  is  concerned.  They  are  never  corrected  or  trans- 
formed; in  their  mechanical  fixity  they  cease  to  live; 
and  the  mind  which  cherishes  and  preserves  them  loses 
its  natural  tendency  to  doubt.  Yet  what  is  doubt  but 
dissatisfaction  with  what  is  known  and  with  the  manner 
of  knowing,  and  a  spur  to  further  inquiry,  to  better  and 
fuller  learning,  to  self  scrutiny,  to  an  examination  of 
one's  own  sentiments,  one's  own  character,  and  an 
inducement  to  broadmindedness,  to  a  welcoming  re- 
ceptiveness  of  all  the  suggestions  and  all  the  teachings 
which  life  at  all  moments  generously  showers  on  us? 

The  remedy  against  this  natural  tendency  of  the 
teacher's  mind  is  to  be  found  in  the  University,  where 
in  theory,  and  so  far  as  is  possible,  in  practice  too, 
science  is  presented  not  as  ready-made,  definitely 
turned  out  in  final  theories,  enclosed  in  consecrated 
manuals;  but  as  inquiry,  as  research,  as  spiritual  activ- 
ity which  does  not  rest  satisfied  with  its  accom- 
plishments, but  for  ever  feels  that  it  does  not 
yet  know  or  does  not  know  enough,  aware  of  the 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  5 

difficulties  which  threaten  every  attained  position, 
and  ready  unrestingly  to  track  them,  to  reveal 
them,  and  meet  them  squarely.  This  life,  which 
is  perpetual  criticism,  and  unceasing  progress  in 
a  learning  which  is  never  completed,  which  never 
aspires  to  be  complete,  is  the  serious  and  fruitful  pur- 
pose of  the  University.  Here  we  must  come,  to  restore 
freshness  to  our  spiritual  activities,  which  alone 
give  value  to  knowledge,  and  wrest  it  from  deadening 
crystallisation,  from  mechanical  rigidity.  For  this 
reason,  it  seems  to  me,  special  provision  should  be 
made  in  the  University  to  satisfy  the  needs  of  school 
teachers.  It  is  not  a  question  of  merely  furnishing 
them  with  additional  information  which  they  might 
just  as  well  get  out  of  books.  The  University  must 
act  on  their  minds,  shake  them,  start  them  going,  instil 
in  them  salutary  doubt  by  criticism,  and  develop  a 
taste  for  true  knowledge. 

The  following  chapters  contain  a  series  of  University 
lectures,  in  accordance  with  these  criteria,  and  deliv- 
ered originally  to  the  elementary  teachers  of  Trieste, 
now  for  the  first  time  again  an  Italian  city.  They  con- 
stitute a  course  which  aims  not  to  increase  the  quantity 
of  culture,  but  to  change  its  character.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  introduce  the  elementary  teacher  into  those  spiritual 
workshops  which  are  the  halls  of  a  University,  to  induce 
him  to  take  part  in  the  original  investigations  which 
constantly  contribute  to  the  formation  of  our  national 


6  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

learning;  which  forever  make  and  reshape  our  ideas 
and  our  convictions  as  to  what  we  should  want  Italian 
science  to  be,  the  Italian  concepts  of  life  and  literature; 
as  to  what  constitute  the  heirloom  of  our  school,  that 
sacred  possession  bequeathed  to  us  by  our  forefathers 
which  makes  us  what  we  are,  which  gives  us  a  name 
and  endows  us  with  a  personality,  by  which  we  are 
enabled  to  look  forward  to  a  future  of  Italy  which  is 
not  solely  economic  and  political,  but  moral  and  intel- 
lectual as  well. 

And  thus,  because  of  the  time,  the  place,  the  audi- 
ence, and  the  subject,  we  are  from  the  start  brought 
face  to  face  with  a  serious  question, — a  question  which 
has  often  been  debated,  and  which  in  the  last  few 
years,  on  account  of  the  exasperation  of  national  senti- 
ment brought  about  by  the  World  War,  has  become  the 
object  of  passionate  controversies.  For  if  it  has  been 
frequently  argued  on  one  side  that  science  is  by  nature 
and  ought  to  be  national,  there  has  been  no  lack  of 
warning  from  the  other  side  as  to  the  dangers  of  this 
position.  For  war,  it  was  said,  would,  sooner  or  later, 
come  to  an  end  and  be  a  thing  of  the  past,  whereas 
truth  never  sets,  never  becomes  a  thing  of  the  past; 
it  is  error  alone  that  is  destined  to  pass  and  disappear. 
We  were  reminded  of  the  fact  that  what  is  scientifically 
true  and  artistically  beautiful  is  beautiful  and  true 
beyond  no  less  than  within  the  national  frontier;  and 
that  only  on  this  condition  is  it  worthy  of  its  name. 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  7 

This  question  therefore  presents  itself  as  a  preliminary 
to  our  investigation,  and  it  is  for  us  to  examine  it. 
We  shall  do  so  in  as  brief  a  manner  as  the  subject  will 
allow. 

We  shall  first  point  out  the  inutility  of  distinguishing 
science  from  culture,  education  from  instruction. 
Those  who  insist  on  these  distinctions  maintain  that 
though  a  school  is  never  national  in  virtue  of  the  con- 
tent of  its  scientific  teaching,  it  must  nevertheless  be 
national  in  that  it  transforms  science  into  culture, 
makes  it  over  into  an  instrument  with  which  to  shape 
consciousness  and  conscience,  and  uses  it  as  a  tool  for 
the  making  of  men  and  for  the  training  of  citizens. 
Thus  we  have  as  an  integral  part  of  science  a  form  of 
action  directed  on  the  character  and  the  will  of  the 
young  generations  that  are  being  nurtured  and  raised 
in  accordance  with  national  traditions  and  in  view  of 
the  ends  which  the  state  wants  to  attain.  Such  dis- 
tinctions however  complicate  but  do  not  resolve  the 
controversy.  They  entangle  it  with  other  questions 
which  it  were  better  to  leave  untouched  at  this  juncture. 
For  it  might  be  said  of  questions  what  Manzoni  said 
of  books:  one  at  a  time  is  enough — if  it  isn't  too  much. 

We  shall  therefore  try  to  simplify  matters,  and  begin 
by  clarifying  the  two  concepts  of  nationality  and  of 
knowledge,  in  order  to  define  the  concept  of  the  "na- 
tionality of  knowledge."  What,  then,  is  the  nation? 
A  very  intricate  question,  indeed,  over  which  violent 


8  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

discussions  are  raging,  and  all  the  more  passionately 
because  the  premises  and  conclusions  of  this  contro- 
versy are  never  maintained  in  the  peaceful  seclusion 
of  abstract  speculative  theories,  but  are  dragged  at 
every  moment  in  the  very  midst  of  the  concrete  inter- 
ests of  the  men  themselves  who  affirm  or  deny  the  value 
of  nationalities.  So  that  serious  difficulties  are  en- 
countered every  time  an  attempt  is  made  to  determine 
the  specific  and  concrete  content  of  this  concept  of  the 
nation,  which  is  ever  present,  and  yet  ever  elusive. 
Proteus-like,  it  appears  before  us,  but  as  we  try  to 
grasp  it,  it  changes  semblance  and  breaks  away.  It 
is  visible  to  the  immediate  intuition  of  every  national 
consciousness,  but  it  slips  from  thought  as  we  strive 
to  fix  its  essence. 

Is  it  common  territory  that  constitutes  nationality? 
or  is  it  common  language?  or  political  life  led  in  com- 
mon? or  the  accumulation  of  memories,  of  traditions, 
and  of  customs  by  which  a  people  looks  back  to  one 
past  where  it  never  fails  to  find  itself?  Or  is  it  per- 
haps the  relationship  which  binds  together  all  the  indi- 
viduals of  a  community  into  a  strong  and  compact 
structure,  assigning  a  mission  and  an  apostolate  to  a 
people's  faith?  One  or  the  other  of  these  elements,  or 
all  of  them  together,  have  in  turn  been  proposed  and 
rejected  with  equally  strong  arguments.  For  in  each 
case  it  may  be  true  or  it  may  be  false  that  the  given 
element  constitutes  the  essence  of  a  people's  national- 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  9 

ity,  or  of  any  historical  association  whatsoever.  All 
these  elements,  whether  separately  or  jointly,  may  have 
two  different  meanings,  one  of  which  makes  them  a 
mere  accidental  content  of  the  national  consciousness, 
whereas  the  other  establishes  them  as  necessary,  essen- 
tial, and  unfailing  constituents.  For  they  may  have 
a  merely  natural  value,  or  they  may  have  a  moral  and 
spiritual  one.  Our  birth-land,  which  nourished  us  in 
our  infancy,  and  now  shelters  the  bodies  of  our  parents, 
the  mountains  and  the  shores  that  surround  it  and  in- 
dividualise it,  these  are  natural  entities.  They  are  not 
man-made;  we  cannot  claim  them,  nor  can  we  fasten 
our  existence  to  them.  Even  our  speech,  our  religion 
itself,  which  do  indeed  live  in  the  human  mind,  may 
yet  be  considered  as  natural  facts  similar  to  the  geo- 
graphical accidents  which  give  boundaries  and  elevation 
to  the  land  of  a  people.  We  may,  abstractly,  look 
upon  our  language  as  that  one  which  was  spoken 
before  we  were  born,  by  our  departed  ancestors  who 
somehow  produced  this  spiritual  patrimony  of  which 
we  now  have  the  use  and  enjoyment,  very  much  in  the 
same  way  that  we  enjoy  the  sunlight  showered  upon  us 
by  nature.  In  this  same  way  a  few,  perhaps  many, 
conceive  of  religion:  they  look  upon  it  as  something 
bequeathed  and  inherited,  and  not  therefore  as  the 
fruit  of  our  own  untiring  faith  and  the  correlate  of  our 
actual  personality.  All  these  elements  in  so  far  as 
they  are  natural  are  evidently  extraneous  to  our  per- 


IO  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

sonality.  We  do  dwell  within  this  peninsula  cloistered 
by  the  Alps;  we  delight  in  this  luminous  sky,  in  our 
charming  shores  smiled  upon  by  the  waters  of  the 
Mediterranean.  But  if  we  emigrate  from  this  lovely 
abode,  if  under  the  stress  of  economic  motives  we 
traverse  the  ocean  and  gather,  a  number  of  us,  some- 
where across  the  Atlantic;  and  there,  united  by  the 
natural  tie  of  common  origin,  and  fastened  by  the 
identity  of  speech,  we  maintain  ourselves  as  a  special 
community,  with  common  interests  and  peculiar  moral 
affinities,  then,  in  spite  of  the  severance  from  our  native 
peninsula,  we  have  preserved  our  nationality:  Italy  has 
crossed  the  ocean  in  our  wake.  Not  only  can  we 
sunder  ourselves  from  our  land,  but  we  may  even 
relinquish  our  customs,  forget  our  language,  abandon 
our  religion;  or  we  may,  within  our  own  fatherland,  be 
kept  separate  by  peculiar  historical  traditions,  by  dif- 
ferences of  dialects  or  even  of  language,  by  religion, 
by  clashing  interests,  and  yet  respond  with  the  same 
sentiment  and  the  same  soul  to  the  sound  of  one  Name, 
to  the  colours  of  one  flag,  to  the  summons  of  common 
hopes,  to  the  alarm  of  common  dangers. 

And  it  is  then  that  we  feel  ourselves  to  be  a  people; 
then  are  we  a  nation.  It  is  not  what  we  put  within 
this  concept  that  gives  consistency  and  reality  to  the 
concept  itself;  it  is  the  act  of  spiritual  energy  whereby 
we  clinw  to  a  certain  element  or  elements  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  that  collective  personality  to  Vv'hich  we 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  ii 

feel  we  belong.  Nationality  consists  not  in  content 
which  may  vary,  but  in  the  form  which  a  certain  con- 
tent of  human  consciousness  assumes  when  it  is  felt  to 
constitute  a  nation's  character. 

But  this  truth  is  still  far  from  being  recognised.  Its 
existence  is  not  even  suspected  by  those  who  utilise  a 
materially  constituted  nationality  as  a  title,  that  is,  an 
antecedent,  and  a  support  for  political  rights  claimed 
by  more  or  less  considerable  ethnical  aggregates  that 
are  more  or  less  developed  and  more  or  less  prepared  to 
take  on  the  form  of  free  and  independent  states  and  to 
secure  recognition  of  a  de  facto  political  personality  on 
the  strength  of  an  assumed  de  jure  existence. 

This  truth,  however,  was  grasped  by  the  profound 
intuition  of  Mazzini,  the  apostle  of  nationalities,  the 
man  who  roused  our  national  energies,  and  whose  irre- 
sistible call  awakened  Italy  and  powerfully  impelled 
her  to  affirm  her  national  being.  Even  from  the  first 
years  of  the  Giovine  Italia  he  insisted  that  Italy,  when 
still  merely  an  idea,  prior  to  her  taking  on  a  concrete 
and  actual  political  reality,  was  not  a  people  and  was 
not  a  nation.  For  a  nation,  he  maintained,  is  not 
something  existing  in  nature,  but  a  great  spiritual  real- 
ity. Therefore  like  all  that  is  in  and  for  the  spirit, 
it  is  never  a  fact  ready  to  be  ascertained,  but  always 
a  mission,  a  purpose,  something  that  has  to  be  realised 
— an  action. 

The  Italians  to  w^hom  Mazzini  spoke  were  not  the 


12  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

people  around  him.  He  was  addressing  that  future 
people  which  the  Italians  themselves  had  to  create. 
And  they  would  create  it  by  fixing  their  souls  on  one 
idea — the  idea  of  a  fatherland  to  be  conquered — a 
sacred  idea,  so  noble  that  people  would  live  and  die 
for  it,  as  for  that  sovereign  and  ultimate  Good  for 
which  all  sacrifices  are  gladly  borne,  without  whick 
man  can  not  live,  outside  of  which  he  finds  nothing 
that  satisfies  him,  nothing  that  is  conducive  to  a  life's 
work.  For  Mazzini  nationality  is  not  inherited 
wealth,  but  it  is  man's  own  conquest.  A  people 
can  not  faint-heartedly  claim  from  others  recognition 
of  their  nation,  but  must  themselves  demonstrate  its 
existence,  realise  it  by  their  willingness  to  fight  and 
die  for  its  independence:  independence  which  is 
freedom  and  unity  and  constitutes  the  nation.  It  is 
not  true  that  first  comes  the  nation  and  then  follows 
the  state  ;  the  nation  is  the  state  when  it  has  triumphed 
over  the  enemy,  and  has  overcome  the  oppression, 
which  till  then  were  hindering  its  formation.  It  is 
not  therefore  a  vague  aspiration  or  a  faint  wish,  but 
an  active  faith,  an  energetic  vohtion  which  creates, 
in  the  freed  political  Power,  the  reahty  of  its 
own  moral  personality  and  of  its  collective  conscious- 
ness. Hence  the  lofty  aim  of  Mazzini  in  insisting  that 
Italy  should  not  be  made  with  the  help  of  foreigners 
but  should  be  a  product  of  the  revolution,  that  is,  of 
its  own  will. 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  13 

And  truly  the  nation  is,  substantially,  as  Mazzini 
saw  and  firmly  believed,  the  common  will  of  a  people 
which  affirms  itself  and  thus  secures  self-realisation, 
A  nation  is  a  nation  only  when  it  wills  to  be  one.  I  said, 
when  it  really  wills,  not  when  it  merely  says  it  does. 
It  must  therefore  act  in  such  a  manner  as  to  realise 
its  own  personality  in  the  form  of  the  State  beyond 
which  there  is  no  collective  will,  no  common  person- 
ality of  the  people.  And  it  must  act  seriously,  sacri- 
ficing the  individual  to  the  collective  whole,  and  wel- 
coming martyrdom,  which  in  every  case  is  but  the 
sacrifice  of  the  individual  to  the  universal,  the  lavishing 
of  our  own  self  to  the  ideal  for  which  we  toil. 

From  this  we  are  not,  however,  to  infer  that  a  nation 
can  under  no  circumstances  exist  prior  to  the  forma- 
tion of  its  State.  For  if  this  formation  means  the 
formal  proclamation  or  the  recognition  by  other  States, 
it  surely  does  pre-exist.  But  it  does  not  if  we  con- 
sider that  the  proclamation  of  sovereignty  is  a  moment 
in  a  previously  initiated  process,  and  the  effect  of  pre- 
existing forces  already  at  work;  which  effect  is  never 
definite  because  a  State,  even  after  it  has  been  consti- 
tuted, continues  to  develop  in  virtue  of  those  very 
forces  which  produced  it;  so  that  it  is  constantly  re- 
newing and  continually  reconstituting  itself.  Hence 
a  State  is  always  a  future.  It  is  that  state  which  this 
very  day  we  must  set  up,  or  rather  at  this  very  instant, 
and  with  all  our  future  efforts  bent  to  that  political 


14  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

ideal  which  gleams  before  us,  not  only  in  the  light  of 
a  beautiful  thought,  but  as  the  irresistible  need  of  our 
own  personahty. 

The  nation  therefore  is  as  intimately  pertinent  and 
native  to  our  own  being  as  the  State,  considered  as 
Universal  Will,  is  one  with  our  concrete  and  actual 
ethical  personality.     Italy   for  us   is   the   fatherland 
which  lives  in  our  souls  as  that  complex  and  lofty 
moral  idea  which  we  are  realising.     We  realise  it  in 
every  instant  of  our  lives,  by  our  feelings,  and  by  our 
thoughts,  by  our  speech  and  by  our  imagination,  indeed, 
by  our  whole  life  which  concretely  flows  into  that  Will 
which  is  the  State  and  which  thus  makes  itself  felt  in 
the  world.     And  this  Will,  this  State  is  Italy,  which 
has  fought  and  won;  which  has  struggled  for  a  long 
time  amid  errors  and  sorrows,  hopes  and  dejection, 
manifestations  of  strength  and  confessions  of  weak- 
ness, but  always  with  a  secret  thought,  with  a  deep- 
seated  aspiration  which  sustained  her  throughout  her 
entire  ordeal,  now  exalting  her  in  the  flush  of  action, 
now,  in  the  critical  moment  of  resistance,  confirming 
and  fortifying  her  by  the  undying  faith  in  ultimate^ 
triumph.     This  nation,  which  we  all  wish  to  raise  to  an 
ever  loftier  station  of  honour  and  of  beauty,  even 
though  we  differ  as  to  the  means  of  attaining  this  end, 
is  it  not  the  substance  of  our  personality, — of  that 
personality  which  we  possess  not  as  individuals  who 
drift  with  the  current,  but  as  men  who  have  a  power- 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  15 

fui  self-consciousness  and  who  look  upward  for  their 
destiny? 

If  we  thus  understand  the  nation,  it  follows  that  not 
only  every  man  must  bear  the  imprint  of  his  nationality, 
but  that  also  there  is  no  true  science,  no  man's  science, 
Which  is  not  national.  The  ancients  believed,  in  con- 
formity with  the  teachings  of  the  Greeks,  that  science 
soars  outside  of  the  human  life,  above  the  vicissitudes 
of  mortals,  beyond  the  current  of  history,  which  is 
troubled  by  the  fatal  conflicts  of  error,  by  falterings 
and  doubts,  and  by  the  unsatisfied  thirst  for  knowledge. 
Truth,  lofty,  pure,  motionless,  and  unchangeable,  was 
to  them  the  fixed  goal  toward  which  the  human  mind 
moved,  but  completely  severed  from  it  and  trans- 
cendent. This  concept,  after  two  thousand  years  of 
speculation,  was  to  reveal  itself  as  abstract  and  there- 
fore fallacious, — abstract  from  the  human  mind, 
which  at  every  given  instance  mirrors  itself  in  such  an 
image  of  truth,  ever  gazing  upon  an  eternal  ideal  but 
always  intent  on  reshaping  it  in  a  new  and  more  ade- 
quate form.  The  modern  world,  at  first  with  dim  con- 
sciousness, and  guided  rather  by  a  fortunate  intuition 
than  by  a  clear  concept  of  its  own  real  orientation, 
then  with  an  ever  clearer,  ever  more  critical  conviction, 
has  elaborated  a  concept  which  is  directly  antithetical 
to  the  classical  idea  of  a  celestial  truth  removed  from 
the  turmoil  of  earthly  things.  It  has  accordingly  and 
by  many  ways  reached  the  conclusion  that  reality,  lofty 


i6  EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY 

though  it  be,  and  truth  itself,  which  nourishes  the  mind 
and  alone  gives  validity  to  human  thought,  are  in  life 
itself,  in  the  development  of  the  mind,  in  the  growth 
of  the  human  personality,  and  that  this  personality, 
though  ideally  beyond  our  grasp,  is  yet  in  the  concrete 
always  historical  and  actual,  and  reahses  itself  in  its 
immanent  value.  It  therefore  creates  its  truth  and 
its  world.  Modern  philosophy  and  modern  conscious- 
ness no  longer  point  to  values  which,  transcending 
history,  determine  its  movement  and  its  direction 
by  external  finalities:  they  show  to  man  that  the 
lofty  aim  which  is  his  law  is  within  himself;  that  it  is 
in  his  ever  unsatisfied  personality  as  it  unceasingly 
strains  upward  towards  its  own  ideal. 

Science  is  no  longer  conceived  to-day  as  the  indiffer- 
ent pure  matter  of  the  intellect.  It  is  an  interest  which 
invests  the  entire  person,  extols  it  and  with  it  moves  on- 
ward in  the  eternal  rhythm  of  an  infinite  development. 
Science  is  not  for  us  the  abstract  contemplation  of 
yore;  it  is  self-consciousness  that  man  acquires,  and 
by  means  of  which  he  actuates  his  own  humanity. 
And  therefore  science  is  no  longer  an  adornment  or  an 
equipment  of  the  mind,  considered  as  diverse  to  its 
content;  it  is  culture,  and  the  formation  of  this  very 
mind.  So  that  whenever  science  is  as  yet  so  abstract 
that  it  seems  not  to  touch  the  person  and  fails  to  form 
it  or  transform  it,  it  is  an  indication  that  it  is  not  as 
yet  true  science. 


EDUCATION  AND  NATIONALITY  17 

So  we  conclude  thus  :  he  who  distinguishes  his  person 
from  his  knowledge  is  ignorant  of  the  nature  of  knowl- 
edge. The  modern  teacher  knows  of  no  science  which 
is  not  an  act  of  a  personahty.  It  knows  no  personality 
which  admits  of  being  sequestered  from  its  ideas,  from 
its  ways  of  thinking  and  of  feeling,  from  that  greater 
life  which  is  the  nation.  Concrete  personality  then  is 
nationality,  and  therefore  neither  the  school  nor  science 
possesses  a  learning  which  is  not  national. 

And  for  this  reason  therefore  our  educational  re- 
forms which  are  inspired  by  the  teachings  of  modern 
idealistic  philosophy  demand  that  the  school  be  ani- 
mated and  vivified  by  the  spiritual  breath  of  the 
fatherland. 


CHAPTER  II 

EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

It  is  essential  at  the  very  outset  to  understand  clearly 
what  is  meant  by  coitcrete  personality,  and  why  the 
particular  or  empirical  personality,  as  we  are  usually 
accustomed  to  consider  it,  is  nothing  more  than  an 
abstraction. 

Ordinarily,  relying  on  the  most  obvious  data  of  ex- 
perience, we  are  led  to  believe  that  the  sphere  of  our 
moral  personality  coincides  exactly  with  the  sphere  of 
our  physical  person,  and  is  therefore  limited  and  con- 
tained by  the  surface  of  our  material  body.  We  con- 
sider this  body  in  itself  as  an  indivisible  whole,  with 
such  reciprocal  correspondence  and  interdependence  of 
its  parts  as  to  become  a  veritable  system.  It  seems  to 
us  also  that  this  system  moves  in  space  as  a  whole 
when  the  body  is  displaced,  continuing  to  remain  united 
as  long  as  it  exists.  We  look  upon  it  as  though  it 
were  separated  from  all  other  bodies,  whether  of  the 
same  or  of  different  kinds,  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
excludes  others  from  the  place  it  occupies,  and  is  itself 
in  turn  excluded  by  them.  One  body  then,  one  physi- 
cal person,  one  moral  personality — that  moral  person- 
ality which  each  one  of  us  recognises  and  affirms  by 

the  consciousness  of  the  ego. 

18 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  19 

And  in  fact  when  I  walk  I  am  not  a  different  person 
from  when  I  think.  My  ego  remains  the  same  whether 
my  body  moves  through  space  or  whether  my  mind 
inwardly  meditates.  Impenetrability,  which  is  pos- 
sessed by  matter,  seems  to  be  also  a  property  of  human 
individualism. 

From  my  ego  every  other  ego  is  apparently  excluded. 
What  I  am  no  one  else  can  be,  and  I  in  turn  cannot  be 
confused  with  another  person.  Those  of  my  fellow 
beings  that  are  most  intimately,  most  closely  related 
to  me  seem  yet  as  completely  external  to  me,  as  thor- 
oughly sundered  from  my  spirit,  as  their  bodies  are 
from  mine.  My  father,  my  brother  are  dead.  They 
have  vanished  from  this  world  in  which  I  nevertheless 
continue  to  exist;  just  as  a  stone  remains  in  its  place 
and  is  in  no  way  affected  when  another  stone  near  by 
is  removed  ;  or  as  a  mutilated  pedestal  may  still  remain 
to  remind  the  onlooker  of  the  statue  that  was  torn 
away. 

Hundreds  of  individuals  assemble  to  listen  to  the 
words  of  an  orator.  But  no  necessary  ties  exist  be- 
tween the  various  persons;  and  when  the  speaking  is 
over,  each  one  goes  his  way  confident  that  he  has  lost 
no  part  of  himself  and  that  he  has  maintained  his  in- 
dividuality absolutely  unaltered. 

Our  elders  lived  on  this  planet  when  we  had  not  yet 
arrived.  After  we  came,  they  gradually  withdrew,  one 
after  the  other.     And  just  as  they  had  been  able  to 


20  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

exist  without  us,  so  shall  we  continue  to  live  without 
them,  and  away  from  them  develop  our  personality. 
For  each  one  of  us,  according  to  this  point  of  view, 
has  his  own  being  within  himself,  his  own  particular 
destiny.  Every  man  makes  of  himself  the  centre 
of  his  world,  of  that  universe  which  he  has  created  with 
deeds  and  thoughts:  a  universe  of  ideas,  of  images, 
of  concepts,  of  systems,  which  are  all  in  his  brain; 
a  universe  of  values,  of  desirable  goods  and  of 
abhorred  evils,  all  of  which  are  rooted  in  his  own 
individual  will,  in  his  character,  and  originate  from  the 
peculiar  manner  in  which  he  personally  colours  this 
world  and  conceives  the  universe. 

What  is  another  man's  sorrow  to  me?  What  part 
have  I  in  his  joys?  And  how  can  the  science  of  Aris- 
totle or  of  Galileo  be  anything  to  me,  since  I  do  not 
know  them,  since  I  cannot  read  their  books,  and  am 
totally  unfamiliar  with  their  teachings?  And  the  un- 
known wayfarer  who  passes  by,  wrapped  in  his 
thoughts,  what  does  he  care  for  my  loftiest  concep- 
tions, for  the  songs  that  well  forth  from  the  depths  of 
my  soul?  The  hero's  exploit  brings  no  glory  to  us; 
the  heinous  deed  of  the  criminal  makes  us  shudder  in- 
deed, but  drives  no  pangs  of  remorse  through  our 
conscience.  For  every  one  of  us  has  his  own  body 
and  his  own  particular  soul.  Every  one,  in  short,  is 
himself  independently  of  what  others  may  be. 

This  conception,  which  we  ordinarily  form  of  our 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONAXITY  21 

personality,  and  on  which  we  erect  the  system  of  our 
practical  life  in  all  our  manifold  relations  with  other 
individuals,  is  an  abstract  concept.  For  when  we 
thus  conceive  our  being,  we  see  but  a  single  side  of  it 
and  that  the  least  important:  we  fail  to  grasp  that  part 
which  reveals  all  that  is  spiritual,  and  human,  and 
truly  and  peculiarly  ours.  I  shall  not  here  investigate 
how  the  human  personality  has  two  aspects  so  totally 
different  one  from  the  other;  and  in  what  remote  depths 
we  must  search  for  the  common  root  of  these  two 
contrasting  and  apparently  contradictory  manifesta- 
tions. Our  task  for  the  moment  is  to  establish  within 
ourselves  through  reflection  the  firm  conviction  that 
we  are  not  lone  individualities:  that  there  is  another 
and  a  better  part  of  us,  an  element  which  is  the  very 
antithesis  of  the  particular,  that  one,  namely,  which 
is  the  deep-seated  source  of  our  nature,  by  which  we 
cease,  each  one  of  us,  to  be  in  irreducible  opposition 
to  the  rest  of  humanity,  and  become  instead  what  all 
the  others  are  or  what  we  want  them  to  be. 

In  order  to  fix  our  attention  on  this  more  profound 
aspect  of  our  inner  life,  I  shall  take  as  an  example 
one  of  those  elements  which  are  contained  in  the  con- 
cept of  nationality,  Language.  Language  it  must  be 
remembered  does  not  belong  per  se  to  nationality;  it 
belongs  to  it  in  virtue  of  an  act  by  which  a  will,  a  per- 
sonality, affirms  itself  with  a  determined  content.  We 
must  now  point  out  the  abstract  character  of  that 


22  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

concept  by  which  language,  which  is  a  constituent  ele- 
ment of  our  personality,  is  usually  ascribed  to  what  is 
merely  particular  in  it. 

That  language  is  a  peculiar  and  constituent  element 
of  personality  is  quite  obvious.  Through  language  we 
speak  not  to  others  only,  but  to  ourselves  also.  Speak- 
ing to  ourselves  means  seeing  within  ourselves  our 
own  ideas,  our  soul,  our  very  self  in  short, — it  means 
self-consciousness,  as  the  philosophers  say,  and  there- 
fore self-control,  clear  vision  of  our  acts,  knowledge 
of  what  stirs  within  us;  it  means,  therefore,  living  not 
after  the  manner  of  dumb  animals,  but  as  rational 
beings,  as  men.  Man  cannot  think,  have  conscious- 
ness of  himself,  reason,  without  first  expressing  all 
that  to  himself.  Man  has  been  defined  as  a  rational 
animal;  he  may  also  be  defined  as  the  speaking  animal. 
The  remark  is  as  old  as  Aristotle. 

Man,  however,  this  animal  endowed  with  the  faculty 
of  speaking,  is  not  man  in  general  who  never  was^  but 
the  real  man,  the  historical  man,  actually  existing. 
And  he  does  not  speak  a  general  language,  but  a  certain 
definite  one. 

When  I  speak  before  a  public,  I  can  but  use  my 
language,  the  Italian  language.  And  I  exist,  that  is 
I  affirm  myself,  I  come  into  real  being,  by  thinking  in 
conformity  with  my  real  personality,  in  so  far  as  I 
speak,  and  speak  this  language  of  mine.  My  language, 
the  Italian  language.    Here  lies  the  problem.    Were 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  23 

I  not  to  speak,  or  were  I  to  speak  otherwise  than  I 
know  how,  I  would  not  be  myself.  This  manner  of 
expressing  myself  is  then  an  intrinsic  trait  of  my  per- 
sonality. But  this  speech  which  makes  me  what  I  am, 
and  which  therefore  intimately  belongs  to  me,  could  it 
possibly  be  mine,  could  I  use  it,  mould  it  into  my  own 
life-substance,  if,  mine  though  it  be,  it  were  yet  en- 
closed within  me  in  the  manner  that  every  particle 
of  my  flesh  is  contained  within  my  body,  having  nothing 
in  common  with  any  other  part  of  matter  co-existing 
in  space?  Could  my  language  in  short  really  be  my 
language,  if  it  belonged  exclusively  to  me,  to  what  I 
have  called  my  particular  or  empirical  personality? 

A  simple  reflection  will  suffice  to  show  that  my  lan- 
guage, like  a  beacon  of  light,  inwardly  illumines  my 
Thought,  and  renders  visible  to  me  every  movement 
and  every  sense,  only  because  this  language  is  not  ex- 
clusively my  own.  It  is  that  same  language  through 
which  I  grasp  the  ancient  authors  of  Italy.  I  read 
about  Francesca  da  Rimini  and  Count  Ugolino,  and 
find  them  witliin  me  in  the  emotion  of  my  throbbing 
soul.  I  read  of  Petrarch's  golden-haired  Laura,  of 
Ariosto's  Angelica,  fair  love  of  chivalrous  men  and 
the  unhappy  friend  of  youthful  Medoro.  I  read 
of  the  cunning  art  whereby  the  Florentine  secretary, 
in  his  keen  speculative  discourses,  sought  to  establish 
the  principalities  and  the  state  of  Italy.  I  read  of  the 
many  loves,  sorrows,  discoveries  and  sublime  concepts 


24  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

which  did  not  blossom  forth  from  my  spirit,  but  which, 
once  expressed  by  the  great  men  of  my  country,  have, 
because  of  their  merits,  continued  to  exist  in  the  imag- 
ination, in  the  intellect,  in  the  hearts  of  Italians, 
and  have  thus  constituted  a  literature,  a  light-shedding 
history  which  is  the  life  of  language,  varied  indeed  and 
restless,  but  ever  the  same.  This  is  the  language  which 
I  first  heard  from  the  dear  lips  of  my  mother,  which 
gradually  and  constantly  I  made  my  own  by  studying 
and  reflecting  on  the  books  and  on  the  conversations 
of  those  who  for  years,  or  days,  or  instants,  were  with 
me  in  my  native  town  and  exchanged  with  me  their 
thoughts  and  their  sentiments;  the  language  which 
unites  to  me  all  those  who,  living  or  dead,  together  con- 
stitute this  which  I  call  and  feel  to  be  my  own  people. 

Yet  I  might  want  to  break  away  with  my  speech 
from  this  glorious  communion.  I  might  try  to  demon- 
strate to  myself  that  my  speech  is  exclusively  mine, 
and  surely  I  would  thus  accomplish  something.  I 
would  produce  an  exception  which  in  this  case  too 
would  serve  to  confirm  the  rule. 

For  surely  a  man  may  devise  a  cryptic  language,  a 
cipher,  a  jargon.  Secret  codes  and  conventional  cants 
are  resorted  to  by  individuals  who  have  some  reason  to 
conceal  their  meaning  from  others.  Such  individuals, 
however,  can  form  but  very  small  groups,  and  because 
of  the  artificial  character  of  their  communications 
never  may  constitute  a  nation.    An  artificial  jargon  of 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  25 

this  sort  is  however  a  language  of  some  kind:  it  must 
be,  since  art  imitates  nature.  It  complies  with  the  law 
that  is  immanent  in  the  peculiar  nature  of  language, 
namely,  that  there  be  nothing  secret  or  hidden  in  it,  for 
speech  and  in  general  every  form  of  spiritual  activity 
invests  a  community  and  aims  at  universality.  The 
jargon  is  possible  only  because  of  the  key  by  which  it 
may  be  translated  back  into  the  common  language. 
Give  a  ciphered  document  to  the  cryptographer;  by 
study  and  ingenuity — that  is  by  the  use  of  that  very 
intelligence  which  arbitrarily  combined  the  cipher — he 
discovers  the  key;  thus  he  too  breaks  up  the  artificial 
form,  and  draws  from  it  the  natural  flow  of  a  speech 
that  is  intelligible  to  all  those  who  speak  the  same  na- 
tional tongue.  And  again,  words  as  they  flow  from  the 
inspired  bosom  of  the  poet,  when  they  first  appear  in 
the  freshness  of  the  new  artistic  creation,  do  have 
something  that  is  cryptic.  That  language  is  the  poet's 
own;  it  never  had  been  used  by  another;  a  jargon  be- 
fore it  is  deciphered  may  be  and  is  the  language  of  a 
particular  personality.  But  if  we  look  more  atten- 
tively, we  shall  see  that  in  both  cases  the  language  is 
the  language  of  the  community.  The  inspired  poet 
does  indeed  speak  to  himself,  but  with  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  potential  audience,  he  utters  a  word  to  him- 
self which  must  eventually  be  intelligible  to  others  be- 
cause it  is  by  its  nature  intelligible.  In  the  conditions 
in  which  the  poet  finds  himself  when  speaking,  he  must 


26  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

use  that  word  and  no  other,  and  any  other  person  in 
those  same  spiritual  conditions  would  use,  could  not 
help  using,  the  same  word.  For  his  word  is  the 
Word,  the  one  that  is  required  by  the  circumstances. 
And  since  he  is  a  poet,  a  serious  mind  uttering  a  word 
which  needs  no  translation,  it  will  be  the  word  of 
his  own  people  first  and  then  of  humanity  at  large,  in 
so  far  as  its  beauty  will  inspire  men  of  different  na- 
tions and  of  diverse  speech  with  the  desire  of  learning 
the  poet's  own  intimate  language. 

All  this  is  true  because  the  spirit  is  universal  activity, 
which,  far  from  separating  men,  unites  them.  It  real- 
ises historically  its  universality  in  the  community  of  the 
family,  of  the  city,  of  the  district,  and  of  the  nation, 
and  in  every  form  of  intimate  aggregation  and  of 
fusion  which  history  may  call  into  being. 

Language  may  or  may  not  be  in  the  formation 
of  a  man's  nationality.  What  however  must  be  ever 
present  is  the  Will  by  which  man  every  moment 
of  his  life  renovates  his  own  personality.  Can  the 
Will,  by  which  each  one  of  us  is  what  he  is,  be  his  own 
Will,  exclusively  his  own?  Or  is  the  Will  itself,  like 
language,  not  perhaps  a  national  heirloom,  but  surely 
a  common  act,  a  communion  of  life,  in  such  a  way  that 
we  live  our  own  life  while  living  the  life  of  the  nation? 

Of  course,  in  the  abstract,  as  I  have  explained  above, 
my  will  is  particular.  But  we  must  be  reminded  that 
Will  is  one  thing,  and  faint  wishing  another.    There 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  27 

is  such  a  thing  as  real  effective  volition,  and  there  is 
something  which  strives  to  be  such  and  fails  ;  this  latter 
we  might  call  "velleity."  Real  will  does  not  rest  sat- 
isfied with  intentions,  designs,  or  sterile  desires;  it 
acts,  and  by  its  effectiveness  it  reveals  itself,  and  by  its 
value  shows  its  reality.  And  our  being  results  not  from 
velleities  but  from  the  real  will.  We  are  not  what  we 
might  conditionally  desire  to  be,  but  what  we  actually 
will  to  be.  A  velleity  we  might  say  is  the  will  directed 
to  an  end  which  is  either  relatively  or  absolutely  im- 
possible; will  is  that  which  becomes  effective. 

But,  then,  when  is  it  that  my  will  really  is  effective, 
really  willsi  I  am  a  citizen  of  a  state  which  has 
power;  this  power,  this  will  of  the  state  expresses  itself 
to  me  in  laws  which  I  must  obey.  The  transgression 
of  laws,  if  the  state  is  in  existence,  bears  with  it  the 
inevitable  punishment  of  the  transgressor,  that  is,  the 
application  of  that  law  which  the  offender  has  refused 
to  recognise.  The  state  is  supported  by  the  inviola- 
bility of  laws,  of  those  sacred  laws  of  the  land  which 
Socrates,  as  Plato  tells  us,  taught  his  pupils  to  revere. 
I,  then,  as  a  citizen  of  my  country,  am  bound  by  its 
Law  in  such  a  manner  that  to  will  its  transgression  is 
to  aim  at  the  impossible.  If  I  did  so,  I  should  be 
indulging  in  vain  velleities,  in  which  my  personality,  far 
from  realising  itself,  would  on  the  contrary  be  disinte- 
grated and  scattered.  I  then  want  what  the  law  wants 
me  to  will. 


28  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

It  makes  no  difference  that,  from  a  material 
and  explicit  point  of  view,  a  system  of  positive  law  does 
not  coincide  throughout  with  the  sphere  of  my  activity, 
and  that  therefore  the  major  part  of  the  standards  of 
my  conduct  must  be  determined  by  the  inner  dictates 
of  my  particular  conscience.  For  it  is  the  Will  of  the 
State  that  determines  the  limits  between  the  moral 
and  the  juridical,  between  what  is  imposed  by  the  law 
of  the  land  and  what  is  demanded  by  the  ethical  con- 
science of  the  individual.  And  there  is  no  limit  which 
pre-exists  to  the  line  by  which  the  constituent  and 
legislative  power  of  the  State  delimits  the  sphere  sub- 
ject to  its  sanctions.  So  that  positively  or  negatively, 
either  by  command  or  by  permission,  our  whole  con- 
duct is  subject  to  that  will  by  which  the  State  estab- 
lishes its  reality. 

But  the  Will  of  the  State  does  not  manifest  itself 
solely  by  the  enactments  of  positive  legislation.  It 
opens  to  private  initiative  such  courses  of  action  as 
may  presumably  be  carried  on  satisfactorily  without 
the  impulse  and  the  direct  control  of  the  sovereign 
power.  But  this  concession  has  a  temporary  char- 
acter, and  the  State  is  ever  ready  to  intervene  as 
soon  as  the  private  management  ceases  to  be  effective. 
So  that  even  in  the  exercise  of  what  seems  the  un- 
trammelled will  of  the  individual  we  discern  the  power 
of  the  State;  and  the  individual  is  free  to  will  some- 
thing only  because  the  sovereign  power  wants  him  to. 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  29 

So  that  in  reality  this  apparently  autonomous  particu- 
lar will  is  the  will  of  the  state  not  expressed  in  terms 
of  positive  legislation,  there  being  no  need  of  such  an 
expression.  But  since  the  essence  of  law  is  not  in  the 
expression  of  it,  but  in  the  will  which  dictates  it,  or 
observes  it,  or  enforces  the  observance  of  it,  in  the  will, 
in  short,  that  wills  it,  it  follows  that  the  law  exists  even 
though  unwritten. 

In  the  way  of  conclusion,  then,  it  may  be  said  that 
I,  as  a  citizen,  have  indeed  a  will  of  my  own;  but  that 
upon  further  investigation  my  will  is  found  to  coincide 
exactly  with  the  will  of  the  State,  and  I  want  anything 
only  in  so  far  as  the  State  wants  me  to  want  it. 

Could  it  possibly  be  otherwise?  Such  an  hypothesis 
overwhelms  me  at  the  very  thought  of  it.  For  it 
would  come  to  this, — that  I  exist  and  my  state  does 
not: — the  state  in  which  I  was  born,  which  sustained 
and  protected  me  before  I  saw  the  light  of  day,  which 
formed  and  guaranteed  to  me  this  communion  of  life; 
the  state  in  which  I  have  always  lived,  which  has  con- 
stituted this  spiritual  substance,  this  world  in  which  I 
support  myself,  and  which  I  trust  will  never  fail  me 
even  though  it  does  change  constantly.  I  could,  it  is 
true,  ignore  this  close  bond  by  which  I  am  tied  and 
united  to  that  great  will  which  is  the  will  of  my  coun- 
try. I  might  balk  and  refuse  to  obey  its  laws.  But 
acting  thus,  I  would  be  indulging  in  what  I  have  called 
velleities.     My  personality,  unable  to  transform  the 


so  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

will  of  the  state,  would  be  overcome  and  suppressed 
by  it. 

Let  us  however  assume  for  a  moment  that  I  might 
in  the  innermost  depths  of  my  being  segregate  myself. 
Averse  to  the  common  will  and  to  the  law  of  the  land, 
I  decide  to  proclaim  over  the  boundless  expanse  of  my 
thought  the  proud  independence  of  my  ego,  as  a  lone, 
inaccessible  summit  rising  out  of  the  solitude.  Up  to 
a  certain  point  this  hypothesis  is  verified  constantly 
by  the  manner  in  which  my  personality  freely  becomes 
actual.  But  even  then  I  do  not  act  as  a  particular 
being:  it  is  the  universal  power  that  acts  through  my 
personal  will. 

For  when  we  effectively  observe  the  law,  with  true 
moral  adhesion  and  in  thorough  sincerity,  the  law  be- 
comes part  of  ourselves,  and  our  actions  are  the  direct 
results  of  our  convictions, — of  the  necessity  of  our 
convictions.  For  every  time  we  act,  inwardly  we  see 
that  such  must  be  our  course;  we  must  have  a  clear 
intuition  of  this  necessity.  The  Saint  who  has  no  will 
but  the  will  of  God  intuitively  sees  necessity  in  his 
norm.  So  does  the  sinner  in  his  own  way:  but  his 
norm  is  erroneous  and  therefore  destined  to  fail. 
Every  criminal  in  transgressing  the  law  obeys  a  pre- 
cept of  his  own  making  which  is  in  opposition  to  the 
enactments  of  the  state.  And  in  so  doing  he  creates 
almost  a  state  of  his  own,  different  from  the  one  which 
historically  exists  and  must  exist  because  of  certain 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  31 

good  reasons,  the  excellence  of  which  the  criminal  him- 
self will  subsequently  realise.  From  the  unfortunate 
point  of  view  which  he  has  taken,  the  transgressor  is 
justified  in  acting  as  he  does,  and  to  such  an  extent  that 
no  one  in  his  position,  as  he  thinks,  could  possibly  take 
exception  to  it.  His  will  is  also  universal;  if  he  were 
allowed  to,  if  it  were  possible  for  him,  he  would  estab- 
lish new  laws  in  place  of  the  old  ones:  he  would  set  up 
another  state  over  the  ruins  of  the  one  which  he  under- 
mines. And  what  else  does  the  tyrant  when  he 
destroys  the  freedom  of  the  land  and  substitutes  a  new 
state  for  the  crushed  Commonwealth?  In  the  same 
manner  the  rebel  does  away  with  the  despot,  starts  a 
revolution  and  establishes  liberty  if  he  is  successful; 
if  not,  he  is  overcome  and  must  again  conform  his  will 
to  the  will  of  that  state  which  he  has  not  been  able  to 
overthrow.  So  then,  I  exercise  my  true  volition  when- 
ever the  will  of  my  state  acts  in  my  personal  will,  or 
rather  when  my  will  is  the  realisation  of  the  will  of  a 
super-national  group  in  which  my  state  co-exists  with 
other  states,  acting  upon  them,  and  being  re-acted 
upon  in  reciprocal  determinations.  Or  perhaps  better 
still,  when  the  entire  world  wills  in  me.  For  my  will, 
I  shall  say  it  once  again,  is  not  individual  but  uni- 
versal, and  in  the  political  community  by  which 
individuals  are  united  into  a  higher  individuality, 
historically  distinct  from  other  similar  ones,  we  must 
see  a  form  of  universality. 


32  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

For  this  reason,  then,  we  are  justified  in  saying  that 
our  personality  is  particular  when  we  consider  it  ab- 
stractly, but  that  concretely  it  realises  itself  as  a 
universal  and  therefore  also  as  a  national  personality. 
This  conception  is  of  fundamental  importance  for  those 
of  us  who  live  in  the  class-room  and  have  made  of 
teaching  our  life's  occupation,  our  ultimate  end,  and 
the  real  purpose  of  our  existence.  For  in  this  con- 
ception of  human  activities  we  find  the  solution  of  a 
problem  that  has  been  present  in  the  minds  of  thinking 
men  ever  since  they  began  to  reflect  on  the  subject  of 
education,  or,  in  other  words,  from  time  immemorial. 
Education,  we  must  remember,  is  not  a  fact,  if  by  fact 
we  mean,  as  we  should,  something  that  has  happened, 
or  is  wont  to  happen,  or  must  inevitably  take  place  in 
virtue  of  the  constancy  of  the  law  which  governs  it. 
We  teachers  are  all  sincerely  convinced  that  education, 
as  we  speak  of  it,  as  it  draws  our  interests,  for  which  we 
work,  and  which  we  strive  to  improve,  is  not  now  what 
it  was  before.  For  there  is  no  education  that  works 
out  in  conformity  with  natural  laws.  It  is  a  free  act  of 
"^  ours,  the  vocation  of  our  souls,  our  duty  as  men.  By  it 
more  nobly  than  by  any  other  action  man  is  enabled  to 
actualise  his  superior  nature.  Animals  do  not  educate: 
even  though  they  do  raise  their  young  ones  they  yet 
form  no  family,  no  ethical  organism  with  members  dif- 
ferentiated and  reciprocally  correlated.  But  we  freely, 
by  an  act  of  our  conscience,  recognise  our  children. 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  33 

as  we  do  our  parents  and  our  brothers;  and  we  discern 
our  fellow-beings  in  ourselves  and  ourselves  in  others; 
and  by  the  growth  of  our  own  we  unconsciously  develop 
the  personality  of  others;  and  therefore  in  the  family, 
in  the  city,  in  any  community,  we  constitute  one  spirit, 
with  common  needs  that  are  satisfied  by  the  operations 
of  individual  activity  which  is  a  social  activity. 

Man  has  been  called  a  political  or  a  social  animal. 
He  might  therefore  be  considered  also  as  an  educating 
animal.  For  we  do  not  merely  educate  the  young  ones, 
our  young  ones.  Education  being  spiritual  action 
bearing  on  the  spirit,  we  really  educate  all  those  that 
are  in  any  way  and  by  any  relations  whatsoever  con- 
nected with  us,  whether  or  not  they  belong  to  our  fam- 
ily or  to  our  school,  as  long  as  they  concur  with  us  in 
constituting  a  complete  social  entity.  And  we  not  only 
train  those  of  minor  age,  who  are  as  yet  under  tutelage, 
and  still  frequent  the  schools  and  are  busily  intent 
upon  developing  and  improving  their  skill,  their  char- 
acter, their  culture.  We  also  educate  the  adults,  the 
grown-up  men  and  women,  the  aged;  for  there  is  no 
man  alive  who  does  not  daily  add  to  his  intellectual 
equipment,  who  does  not  derive  some  advantage  from 
his  human  associations,  who  could  not  appropriately 
repeat  the  statement  of  the  Roman  emperor — nulla 
dies  sine  linea.    Man  always  educates. 

But  here,  as  in  every  other  manifestation  of  his  spir- 
itual activity,  man  does  not  behave  in  sole  conformity 


34  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

with  instinct;  he  does  not  teach  by  abandoning  himself, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  force  of  natural  determinism.  He 
is  fully  aware  of  his  own  doings.  He  keeps  his  eyes 
open  on  his  own  function,  so  that  he  may  attain  the 
end  by  the  shortest  course,  that  he  may  without  wast- 
ing his  energies  derive  from  them  the  best  possible 
results.     For  man  reflects. 

It  is  evident  then  that  education  is  not  a  scheme 
which  permits  pedagogues  and  pedants  to  interfere 
with  their  theories  and  lucubrations  in  this  sacred  task 
of  love,  which  binds  the  parents  to  the  children,  brings 
old  and  young  together,  and  keeps  mankind  united  in 
its  never  ceasing  ascent.  Before  the  word  came  into 
being,  the  thing,  as  is  usually  the  case,  already  existed. 
Before  there  was  a  science  and  an  incumbent  for  the 
chair,  there  existed  something  that  was  the  life  of  this 
science  and  therefore  the  justification  of  the  chair. 
There  was  the  intent  reflectiveness  of  man,  who  in 
compliance  with  the  divine  saying,  ^'Know  thyself," 
was  becoming  conscious  of  his  own  work,  and  there- 
fore, unwilling  to  abandon  his  actions  to  external  im- 
pulses, began  to  question  everything.  What  the  lower 
animal  does  naturally  and  unerringly  through  its  in- 
fallible instinct,  man  achieves  by  the  restless  scrutiny 
of  his  mind.  Ever  thoughtful,  always  yearning  for 
the  better,  he  searches  and  explores,  often  stumbling 
in  error,  but  ever  rising  out  of  it  to  a  higher  station 
of  learning  and  of  art.    Our  education  is  human,  be- 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  35 

cause  it  is  an  action  and  not  a  fact;  because  it  is  a 
problem  that  we  always  solve  and  have  to  keep  solving 
for  ever. 

This  intuitive  truth  is  demonstrated  experimentally 
to  us  by  the  very  lives  we  live  as  educators.  As  long 
as  the  freshness  of  our  vocation  lasts,  as  long  as  we 
can  remain  free  from  mechanical  routine  and  from  the 
impositions  of  fixed  habits;  as  long  as  we  are  able  to 
consider  every  new  pupil  with  renewed  interest,  dis- 
cover in  him  a  different  soul,  unlike  that  of  any  other 
that  we  have  previously  come  in  contact  with,  and 
differing  within  itself  from  day  to  day;  as  long  as  it  is 
still  possible  for  us  to  enter  the  class-room  thrilled  and 
throbbing  in  the  anticipation  of  new  truths  to  reveal, 
of  novel  experiments  to  perform,  of  unexpected  diffi- 
culties to  overcome,  in  the  full  consciousness  of  the 
rapid  motion  of  a  life  ever  renewed  in  us  and  around 
us  by  the  incoming  generations,  that  flow  to  us  and 
ebb  away  unceasingly  towards  life  and  death;  so  long 
shall  we  really  live  and  love  the  teacher's  life,  so  long 
shall  we  demonstrate  to  ourselves  and  to  others  the 
truth  I  have  already  affirmed. 

We  teachers  should  be  constantly  on  our  guard 
against  the  dangers  of  routine,  against  the  belief  that 
we  have  but  to  repeat  the  same  old  story  in  the  same 
class-room,  to  the  same  kind  of  distant,  blank  faces, 
staring  at  us  in  dreary  uniformity  from  the  same 
benches.     We  shall  continue  to  be  educators  only  as 


36  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

long  as  we  are  able  to  feel  that  every  instant  of  our 
life's  work  is  a  new  instant,  and  that  education  there- 
fore is  a  problem  that  insistently  stimulates  our  in- 
genuity to  an  ever  renewed  solution. 

Now  the  most  important  of  all  tasks,  ancient  and 
modern,  in  the  field  of  education  is  this, — the  task  of 
the  teacher  to  represent  the  Universal  to  his  pupils, 
the  Universal,  of  course,  as  historically  determined. 
Scientific  thought,  customs,  laws,  religious  beliefs  are 
brought  before  the  pupil's  mind,  not  as  the  science, 
the  laws,  the  religion  of  the  teacher,  but  as  those  of 
humanity,  of  his  country,  of  his  period.  And  the 
pupil  is  the  particular  individual  who,  having  entered 
upon  the  process  of  education,  and  being  submitted, 
so  to  speak,  to  the  yoke  of  the  school,  ceases  to  enjoy 
his  former  liberty  in  the  pursuit  of  a  spiritual  endow- 
ment and  in  the  formation  of  his  character,  and, 
in  consequence  of  this  educational  pressure,  bends 
compliantly  before  the  common  law.  Hence  the  world- 
old  opposition  to  the  coercive  power  of  the  school,  and 
the  outcry  raised  from  time  to  time  against  the  privilege 
demanded  by  the  educator,  who  on  the  strength  of  the 
assumedly  higher  quality  of  his  beliefs,  his  learning, 
his  taste,  or  his  moral  conscience,  claims  to  interfere 
with  the  spontaneous  development  of  a  personality  in 
quest  of  itself. 

On  one  side  education  undoubtedly  assumes  the  task 
of  developing  freedom,  for  the  aim  of  education  is  to 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  37 

produce  men;  and  man  is  worthy  of  this  name  only 
when  he  is  a  master  of  himself,  capable  of  initiating  his 
own  acts,  responsible  for  his  deeds,  able  to  discern  and 
assimilate  the  ideas  which  he  accepts  and  professes, 
affirms  and  propagates,  so  that  whatever  he  says, 
thinks,  or  does,  really  comes  from  him.  Our  children 
are  said  to  be  properly  raised  when  they  give  evidence 
of  being  able  to  take  care  of  themselves  without  the 
help  of  our  guidance  and  advice.  And  we  trust  that 
we  have  accomplished  our  task  as  educators  when  our 
pupils  have  made  our  language  their  own  and  are  able 
to  tell  us  new  things  originally  thought  out  by  them. 
Freedom  then  must  be  the  result  of  education. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  teaching  implies  an  action 
exercised  on  another  mind,  and  education  cannot  there- 
fore result  in  the  relinquishment  and  abandonment  of 
the  pupil.  The  educator  must  awaken  interests  that 
without  him  would  for  ever  lie  dormant.  He  must 
direct  the  learner  towards  an  end  which  he  would  be 
unable  to  estimate  properly  if  left  alone,  and  must  help 
him  to  overcome  the  otherwise  unsurmountable  ob- 
stacles that  beset  his  progress.  He  must,  in  short, 
transfuse  into  the  pupil  something  of  himself,  and  out 
of  his  own  spiritual  substance  create  elements  of  the 
pupil's  character,  mind,  and  will.  But  the  acts 
which  the  pupil  performs  in  consequence  of  his  train- 
ing will,  in  a  certain  measure,  be  those  of  his  teacher; 
and  education  will  therefore  have  proved  destructive 


v/ 


38  EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY 

of  that  very  liberty  with  which  the  pupil  was  originally 
endowed.  Is  it  not  true  that  people  constantly  attri- 
bute to  early  family  influences  and  to  environment — 
that  is,  to  education — the  good  and  the  bad  in  the 
deeds  of  the  mature  man? 

This  is  the  form  in  which  the  problem  usually  pre- 
sents itself.  The  mind  of  the  educator  is  therefore 
torn  by  two  conflicting  forces:  the  desire  zealously  to 
watch  and  control  the  pupil's  growth  and  direct  his 
evolution  along  the  course  that  seems  quickest  and 
surest  for  his  complete  development;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  fear  that  he  may  kill  fertile  seeds,  stifle 
with  presumptuous  interference  the  spontaneous  life 
of  the  spirit  in  its  personal  impulses,  and  clothe  the 
individual  with  a  garment  that  is  not  adapted  for 
him, — crush  him  under  the  weight  of  a  leaden  cape. 

The  solution  of  this  problem  must  be  sought  in  the 
concrete  conception  of  individual  personality;  and 
this  will  be  the  theme  of  the  next  chapter.  But  I  must 
at  the  very  outset  utter  an  emphatic  word  of  warning. 
My  solution  does  not  remove  all  difficulties;  it  cannot 
be  used  as  a  key  to  open  all  doors.  For  as  I  have 
repeatedly  stated,  the  value  of  education  consists  in 
the  persistence  of  the  problems,  ever  solved  and  yet 
ever  clamouring  for  a  new  solution,  so  that  we  may 
never  feel  released  from  the  obligation  of  thinking. 

My  solution  must  be  simply  accepted  as  affording  a 
guidance  by  which  different  people  may,  along  more 


EDUCATION  AND  PERSONALITY  39 

or  less  converging  lines,  approach  their  particular  ob- 
jectives. For  the  problem  presents  itself  under  ever- 
changing  forms,  and  demands  a  continuous  develop- 
ment, and  almost  a  progressive  interpretation  of  the 
concept  which  I  am  going  to  offer  as  an  aid  to  its 
solution.  No  effort  of  thinking,  once  completed,  will 
ever  exonerate  us  from  thinking,  from  thinking  un- 
ceasingly, from  thinking  more  and  more  intensively. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  FUNDAMENTAL  ANTIMONY  OF 
EDUCATION 

A  MORE  precise  determination  must  now  be  given  to 
the  problem,  touched  upon  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
which  might  be  called  the  jundamental  antinomy  of 
education,  understanding  by  "antinomy"  the  conflict 
of  two  contradictory  affirmations,  either  one  of  which 
appears  to  be  true  and  irrefutable. 

The  two  contradictory  affirmations  are  (i)  that 
man  as  the  object  of  education  is  and  must  be  free, 
and  (2)  that  education  denies  man's  freedom.  They 
might  perhaps  be  better  re-stated  in  this  way:  (i) 
Education  presupposes  freedom  in  man  and  strives  to 
increase  it.  (2)  Education  treats  man  by  ignoring 
the  freedom  he  may  originally  be  endowed  with,  and 
acts  in  such  a  way  as  to  strip  him  entirely  of  it. 

Each  of  the  two  propositions  must  be  taken,  not  as 
an  approximate  affirmation,  but  as  an  exact  enunciation 
of  an  irrefutable  truth.  Therefore  freedom  here  means 
full  and  absolute  liberty;  and  when  we  speak  of  the 
negation  of  freedom,  we  mean  that  education  as  such, 
and  as  far  as  it  is  carried,  destroys  the  freedom  of  the 
pupil. 

4o 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION         41 

Let  us  first  see  precisely  what  is  meant  by  this 
freedom  which  we  attribute  to  man.  Each  one  of  us 
firmly  even  though  obscurely  possesses  some  concep- 
tion of  it.  Every  one  of  us,  even  though  unfamiliar 
with  the  controversies  that  have  raged  for  centuries 
on  the  question  of  free  will,  must  have  sometimes 
been  compelled  by  the  conditions  of  human  life  to 
face  the  difficulties  that  beset  the  concept  of  man's 
freedom,  and  must  have  been  led  to  question,  if  not 
to  deny  outright,  the  proposition  that  man  is  free. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  every  one  of  us  has  to  admit 
that  the  experience  of  life  has  confirmed  the  belief 
in  our  freedom  which  for  a  moment  had  been  shaken 
by  doubt  and  perplexity;  and  that  faith,  instinctive 
and  incoercible,  outlives  every  time  the  onslaughts  of 
negation. 

By  liberty  we  mean  that  power  peculiar  to  man  by 
which  he  moulds  himself  into  his  actual  being  and 
originates  the  series  of  facts  in  which  every  one  of  his 
actions  becomes  manifest.  In  nature,  all  facts,  or,  as 
they  are  called,  all  phenomena  appear  to  us  to  be  so 
interrelated  as  to  constitute  a  universal  system  in  which 
no  phenomenon  can  ever  be  considered  as  absolutely 
beginning,  but  can  in  each  case  be  traced  back  to  a  pre- 
ceding phenomenon  as  its  cause,  or  at  any  rate  as 
the  condition  of  its  intelligibility.  The  condensation 
of  the  aqueous  vapour  in  the  cloud  produces  rain; 
but  vapour  would  not  condense  without  the  action 


i/^ 


42         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

of  temperature,  nor  again  would  temperature  be 
lowered  without  the  concurrence  of  certain  meteor- 
ological facts  which  modify  it,  etc. 

But  we  believe  on  the  other  hand  that  man  derives 
from  no  one  but  himself  the  principles  and  the  causes 
of  his  actions.  So  that  whenever  we  see  in  his  conduct 
the  necessary  effects  of  causes  that  have  acted  on  his 
character  or  momentarily  on  his  will,  we  cease  to  con- 
sider such  acts  as  partaking  of  that  moral  value 
through  which  man's  conduct  is  really  human  and  com- 
pletely sundered  from  the  instinctive  impulses  of  the 
lower  animal,  and  even  more  so  from  the  behaviour  of 
the  forces  of  inanimate  matter. 

We  may  in  certain  moments  deny  a  man's  humanity, 
and  see  in  his  conduct  only  brutal  impulse,  fierce 
cruelty,  and  unreasoning  bestiality.  In  such  moments 
we  cannot  stop  either  to  praise  or  to  blame  him.  We 
do  not  even  strive  to  reason  with  him,  for  we  feel 
that  arguments  would  produce  no  impression  on  his 
obdurate  consciousness.  Only  through  force  can  we 
defend  ourselves  from  his  violence;  against  him  we 
must  use  the  same  weapon  that  we  rely  upon  in  our 
struggle  with  the  wild  beasts  and  the  blind  forces  of 
nature.  We  then  become  aware  that  our  soul  refuses 
to  recognise  such  an  individual  as  a  man.  We  esteem 
man  to  be  such  only  when  we  believe  that  we  can  in- 
fluence him  by  words,  by  arguments  that  are  directed 
to  reason,  which  is  the  birthright  of  man,  and  when 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  43 

we  are  able  to  prevail  upon  those  sentiments  of  his 
which,  as  peculiarly  human,  appear  to  be  almost 
the  foundation  and  the  understructure  of  rational 
activity.  This  reason  and  these  sentiments  it  must 
be  remembered  are  the  peculiar  constituents  of 
human  personality.  They  cannot  be  imparted  to  man 
from  the  outside.  They  are  in  him  from  the  very 
start  even  if  only  as  germs  which  he  must  himself 
cultivate,  and  which  will,  when  developed,  enable 
him  to  act  consciously,  that  is,  with  full  knowledge 
of  his  acts.  This  knowledge  is  twofold,  for  he  knows 
what  he  is  doing,  and  he  knows  also  how  his  actions 
must  be  judged.  And  so  all  the  causes  that  bear 
on  him  are  practically  of  no  weight  in  determining 
a  course  which  he  will  take,  if  he  is  a  man,  only 
after  the  approval  of  his  own  judgment.  What  is  more 
natural  than  to  avenge  an  insult,  and  to  harbour  hatred 
against  an  enemy?  And  yet  from  the  viewpoint  of 
morals,  man  is  worthy  of  this  name  only  in  so  far  as 
he  is  able  to  resist  his  overpowering  passions  and  to 
release  himself  from  that  force  which  compels  him  to 
offset  harm  with  more  harm,  and  meet  hatred  with 
hatred.  He  must  pardon;  he  must  love  the  enemy 
who  harms  him.  Only  when  a  man  is  capable  of 
understanding  the  beauty  of  this  pardon  and  of  such 
love,  only  when,  attracted  by  their  beauty,  he  acts  no 
longer  in  compliance  with  the  force  of  instinctive 
nature,  does  he  cease  to  count  as  a  purely  natural 


44         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

being,  and  lift  himself  to  a  higher  level  into  that  moral 
world  where  he  must  progressively  exhibit  his  human 
activities.  Whether  man  is  equal  to  this  task  or  not, 
we  must  demand  that  he  satisfy  this  requirement  before 
we  admit  him  into  the  society  of  mankind.  He  must 
have  in  himself  the  strength  to  withstand  the  pres- 
sure of  external  forces  which  may  act  on  his  will,  on 
his  personality,  on  that  inner  centre  from  which  his 
personality  moves  towards  us,  speaks  to  us,  and  thus 
affirms  its  existence.  We  make  these  demands  on  him; 
and  as  we  extol  him  when  by  his  deeds  he  shows  suffi- 
cient capacity  for  his  human  role,  so  we  also  blame 
him  every  time  we  find  him  through  weakness  yielding 
to  these  forces.  And  the  import  of  our  blame  is  that 
he  is  responsible  for  not  having  the  power  which  he 
should  have  had. 

It  is  of  no  importance  that  out  of  compassion,  or 
through  sympathy  for  human  frailty,  we  lighten  or 
even  entirely  remove  the  burden  of  our  censure.  Our 
disapproval  of  the  deficiency,  even  though  unexpressed, 
remains  within  us  side  by  side  with  the  conviction  that 
the  delinquent  may  do  a  great  deal,  nay,  must,  aided 
by  us  in  the  future,  do  everything  in  his  power  to  meet 
successfully  the  opposing  forces  of  evil.  We  surely 
cannot  abandon  the  unfortunate  wretch  who  through 
moral  impotence — whether  it  be  the  craven  submissive- 
ness  of  the  coward,  or  the  undaunted  violence  of  the 
overbearing  brute — commits  an  evil  deed.    We  feel  it 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION         45 

our  duty  to  watch  over  him  and  help  him  on  the  road 
to  redemption,  because  of  our  firm  conviction  that  he 
will  eventually  redeem  himself;  for  he  is  after  all  a  man 
like  the  rest  of  us,  and  possesses  therefore  within  him- 
self the  source  and  principle  of  a  life  which  will  raise 
him  from  the  slough  in  which  he  lies  immersed. 

There  is,  however,  a  pseudo-science  which,  on  the 
basis  of  superficial  and  inaccurate  observations,  dog- 
matically asserts  that  certain  forms  of  criminality 
give  evidence  of  original  and  irremediable  moral  de- 
pravity; and  that  therefore  persons  tainted  with  it 
are  fatally  condemned  never  to  heed  sufficiently  the 
voice  of  duty  and  ever  to  yield  to  their  perverted 
instinct,  which  presses  unrestrained  from  the  depths  of 
their  being  at  the  slightest  provocation  and  on  the 
occasion  of  the  most  insignificant  clash  with  other 
human  beings. 

This  is  the  doctrine  of  the  modern  school  of  criminal 
anthropology  which  has  spread  throughout  the  world 
the  fame  of  some  Italian  writers.  Though  their  in- 
fluence is  now  on  the  wane,  their  observations  on  the 
pathological  nature  of  criminal  acts  have  contributed 
to  establish  the  need  of  a  more  humane  treatment  of 
offenders, — more  humane  because  rational  and  ef- 
fective. 

Their  doctrine  falls  in  with  a  series  of  systems  which 
at  all  times,  and  always  for  materialistic  motives, — 
materialistic  even  though  disguised  under  religious  and 


46         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

theological  robes, — have  denied  to  man  that  power 
which  we  call  liberty,  compelling  him  therefore  to  bend 
down  under  the  stress  of  universal  determinism,  and  to 
behave  as  the  drop  that  forever  moves  with  the  motion 
of  the  boundless  ocean,  an  insignificant  particle  of  the 
entire  watery  mass.  What  force  intrinsic  to  this  drop 
could  ever  stop  it  on  the  crest  of  the  wave  which  hurls 
it  forward?  Man,  they  say,  is  no  different  from  this 
drop:  from  the  time  of  his  birth  to  the  instant  of  his 
death,  hemmed  in  by  all  the  beings  of  nature,  acted 
upon  by  innumerable  concurrent  causes,  he  is  pushed 
and  dragged  at  every  moment  by  the  irresistible  cur- 
rent of  all  the  forces  of  the  entire  mass  of  the  universe. 
At  times  he  may  delude  himself  into  believing  that  he 
has  lifted  his  consciousness  out  of  the  huge  flood,  that 
it  is  within  his  power  to  resist,  to  stop  it  as  far  as  he  is 
concerned,  and  to  control  it;  that,  in  short,  it  rests 
with  him  to  fashion  his  own  destiny.  But  alas! 
this  very  belief,  this  illusion  is  the  determined  result 
of  the  forces  acting  upon  him:  it  is  the  inevitable  effect 
of  the  play  of  his  representations, — representations 
which  have  not  their  origin  in  him,  but  have  been  im- 
pressed upon  him  by  outside  forces.  So  that  the  illu- 
sion of  independence  is  but  a  mocking  confirmation  of 
the  impossibility  of  escaping  the  rush  of  fatal  currents. 
I  shall  not  here  give  a  critical  presentation  of  the 
arguments  by  which  systems  such  as  these  have 
established  the  absence  of  freedom  in  man.     In  our 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION         47 

present  need,  a  single  remark  will  suffice,  and  will  per- 
mit us,  I  believe,  to  cut  the  discussion  short.  A  great 
German  philosopher,  who  had  conceived  science  and 
reality,  which  is  the  object  of  science,  in  such  a  way 
as  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  finding  in  reality  a 
place  for  man's  freedom,  noticed  that  freedom,  in  spite 
of  all  the  difficulties  which  science  encounters  in  ac- 
counting for  it,  corresponds  and  answers  to  an  invinci- 
ble certitude  in  our  soul,  invincible  because  a  postulate 
of  our  moral  conscience.  That  is  to  say,  that  whatever 
our  scientific  theories  and  ideas,  we  have  a  con- 
science which  imposes  a  law  upon  us, — a  law  which, 
though  not  promulgated  and  sustained  by  any  external 
force,  or  rather  because  of  it,  compels  us  in  a  manner 
which  is  absolute.  This  law  is  the  moral  law.  It 
requires  no  speculative  demonstration.  The  scrutiny 
of  philosophers  might  not  be  helpful  to  it.  It  rises 
spontaneously  and  naturally  from  the  intimate  recesses 
of  our  spirit;  and  it  demands  from  our  will,  from 
the  will  of  the  most  uncouth  man,  an  unconditional 
respect.  What  sense  would  there  be  in  the  word  duty, 
if  man  were  able  to  do  only  those  things  which  his 
own  nature,  or  worse  still,  nature  in  general,  compelled 
him  to  do?  The  existence  of  duty  implies  a  power  to 
fulfil  it.  And  the  certitude  of  our  moral  obligations 
rests  on  the  conviction  that  we  have  within  us  the  power 
to  meet  them.  We  can  answer  the  call  of  duty  because 
we  are  free. 


48         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

This  consideration,  important  as  it  is,  cannot  how- 
ever be  considered  as  sufficient.  For  this  moral 
conscience,  this  certitude  with  which  the  moral  con- 
science affirms  the  existence  of  an  unavoidable  duty, 
might  also  be  an  illusion  determined  in  us  by  natural 
causes.  Nothing  hinders  us  from  thinking  thus,  and 
surely  there  is  no  contradiction  implied  in  this  explana- 
tion, which  in  fact  because  of  its  possibilities  is  offered 
by  the  philosophers  of  materialism. 

But  the  need  of  liberty  is  not  solely  felt  when  we 
strive  to  conceive  our  moral  obligations;  freedom  is 
not  only  the  ground  for  existence,  the  raison  d'etre  of 
moral  law,  as  Kant  thought — for  he  is  the  philosopher 
to  whom  I  alluded  above; — no!  freedom  is  the  condi- 
tion of  the  entire  life  of  the  spirit.  And  the  materialist 
who,  having  destroyed  liberty  as  a  condition  of  moral 
conduct,  believes  that  he  is  still  able  to  think,  that  his 
intellectual  activity  can  proceed  undisturbed  after  his 
faith  in  the  objective  value  and  in  the  reality  of  moral 
laws  has  been  abandoned,  such  a  materialistic  thinker 
is  totally  mistaken.  For  without  freedom,  man  not 
only  is  unable  to  speak  of  duty,  but  he  cannot  speak  at 
all,— not  even  of  his  materialistic  views.  This  is 
the  same  as  saying  that  the  negation  of  liberty  is  un- 
thinkable. 

A  brief  reflection  will  make  this  clearer.  We  speak 
to  others  or  to  ourselves  in  so  far  as  we  think,  or  say 
something  or  make  affirmations.    Let  us  suppose  that 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  49 

ideas  be  present  to  our  minds  (as  people  have  some- 
times imagined)  without  our  looking  at  them,  without 
our  noticing  them.  Such  ideas  would  have  offered 
themselves  in  vain,  in  the  same  way  that  many  material 
objects  remain  unseen  before  us,  because  we  do  not 
turn  our  gaze  toward  them.  Every  object  of  the  mind, 
that  is,  every  thought,  can  only  be  thought  because  in 
addition  to  it  we  too  are  in  the  mind  :  our  mental  activ- 
ity is  there,  the  ego  of  the  thinking  man,  the  subject 
which  is  ready  to  affirm  the  object.  And  thought 
proper  consists  in  this  affirmation  of  the  object  by  the 
subject.  Now,  the  subject,  that  is,  man,  must  be  as  free 
in  the  affirmation  of  his  thought,  by  which  he  thinks 
something,  as  he  must  be  free  in  every  one  of  his 
actions  in  order  that  his  action  be  truly  his,  and  really 
human.  In  fact,  we  demand  of  man  that  he  give 
an  account  of  his  thoughts  as  well  as  of  his  deeds. 
We  evaluate  not  only  what  he  does,  but  also  what  he 
thinks;  we  praise  him  or  we  disapprove  of  him 
because  of  his  sayings,  that  is,  his  thoughts,  and  we 
call  upon  him  to  correct  those  thoughts  which  he 
should  not  entertain.  In  this  way  we  indicate  our 
conviction  that  the  thought  of  each  one  of  us  is  not 
simply  a  logical  consequence  of  its  premises,  not  an 
effect  determined  by  a  psychic  mechanism  set  in 
motion  by  the  universal  mechanism  of  which  our 
individual  psyche  is  a  part;  we  are  convinced  that 
thought  depends  upon  man,  upon  his  capacity,  upon 


50         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

his  personality,  which  is  not  controlled  by  any 
mechanical  forces,  nor  subject  to  premises  which 
he  may  no  longer  modify  once  he  has  accepted 
them.  We  are  the  masters  of  our  thinking;  and  if  the 
vigour  of  the  human  personality  is  indeed  shown  by  the 
steadfast  constancy  whereby  in  practical  life  we  pursue 
a  hard  and  toilsome  course  toward  an  arduous  goal,  it 
is  revealed  just  as  much  by  the  quickness,  the  readi- 
ness, the  assiduousness,  the  lack  of  prejudice,  the  love 
which  we  manifest  in  our  search  after  truth. 

It  has  therefore  been  said  that  cognition  in  man  has 
moral  value,  and  that  on  the  other  hand  the  will  is 
operative  in  the  act  of  the  intellect.  Such  distinctions 
are  dangerous.  But  whether  we  call  it  will  or  intellect, 
the  activity  which  makes  us  what  we  are,  by  which  we 
actualise  our  personality,  also  by  thinking,  it  is  certain 
that  it  is  a  conscious  and  discriminating  activity, 
through  no  force  of  gravity  precipitating  on  its  object, 
but  approaching  it  with  selective  freedom  of  determina- 
tion. And  in  the  manner  that  every  action  aims  at  the 
good,  because  it  seems  good,  and  appears  in  contrast 
with  evil,  so  every  cognition  is  the  affirmation  of  what 
to  us  is  or  seems  to  be  a  truth  in  opposition  to  error 
and  falseness.  Without  the  antithesis  of  good  to  evil 
there  would  be  no  moral  action:  without  the  antithesis 
of  the  true  to  the  false  there  would  be  no  cognition. 
But  the  existence  of  this  antithesis  implies  a  choice 
and  therefore  the  liberty  of  choosing. 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  51 

Should  we  deny  freedom,  and  consequently  abandon 
man  to  the  determinism  of  the  causes  acting  upon 
him,  we  should  deny  the  possibility  of  distinguishing 
between  good  and  evil,  between  true  and  false.  The 
materialist,  therefore,  when  he  rejects  freedom,  is  com- 
pelled to  affirm  that  the  value  which  moral  conscience 
attributes  to  goodness  is  devoid  of  any  real  grounds, 
and  what  is  worse,  that  his  very  statement  is  thereby 
stripped  of  all  the  value  of  truth.  For  he  must  be 
inwardly  convinced  that  what  he  thinks  has  no  reason 
to  be  thought  and  therefore  cannot  be  thought. 

The  negation  of  freedom  leads  to  this  absurdum, 
to  this  impossible  thought,  which  is  the  Thought  that 
is  being  thought  as  such,  and  yet  does  not  admit  of 
being  thought.  Man,  in  so  far  as  he  thinks,  affirms 
his  faith  in  freedom,  and  every  attempt  on  his  part 
to  uproot  this  faith  from  his  soul  is  but  a  glaring  con- 
firmation of  its  existence.  This  observation,  properly 
grasped,  is  sufficient  to  establish  human  freedom  on  a 
solid  ground. 

Freedom,  moreover,  which  man  needs  in  order  to  be 
human,  cannot  be,  as  some  have  supposed,  a  relative 
liberty,  limited  and  restricted  by  certain  conditions, 
for  conditional  liberty  does  not  differ  from  slavery. 
Here  indeed  is  the  very  crux  of  the  problem.  Every 
one  would  readily  admit  the  existence  of  a  limited 
freedom,  and  the  divergence  would  then  be  reduced  to 
a  question  of  degree.     But  the  fact  is  that  freedom 


52         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

must  be  absolute  or  not  be  at  all.  Matter,  that  is, 
every  material  object,  is  not  free  for  the  very  reason 
that  it  is  limited;  whereas  the  spirit — every  spiritual 
act — is  free  because  it  is  infinite,  and  as  such  not  re- 
lative to  any  thing,  and  therefore  absolute. 

Any  hmitation  of  the  spirit  would  annihilate  its  lib- 
erty. The  slave  is  such  because  his  will  is  constrained 
within  the  bounds  imposed  upon  it  by  the  master's 
volition.  The  human  spirit  is  not  free  in  the  presence 
of  nature  because  nature  envelops  it  and  enfolds  it 
within  narrow  confines,  which  allow  only  a  certain 
development;  and  this  development  therefore  cannot 
be  looked  upon  as  a  grant  of  nature  but  rather  as  a 
condemnation,  in  that  it  marks  out  boundaries 
which  cannot  be  trespassed.  The  lower  animal  is  not 
free  because  even  if  its  actions  seem  to  imply  a  ration- 
ality not  very  different  from  that  of  man,  yet  in  reality 
its  acts,  differently  from  the  doings  of  man,  follow  the 
straight  line  pre-established  by  instinct,  which  admits 
of  no  original  power  and  allows  no  individual  creation. 
If  there  is  a  limit,  there  must  be  something  limiting  and 
something  limited;  there  must  be  a  necessary  relation- 
ship of  one  to  the  other,  so  that  the  thing  limited  can  in 
no  way  free  itself  from  the  consequences  of  this  rela- 
tionship. These  consequences  are  summed  up  in  the 
impossibility  of  being  all,  or  in  other  words  in  the 
necessity  of  remaining  within  limits,  and  to  obey  there- 
fore the  untransgressable  laws  set  by  one's  own  nature. 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  53 

This  necessity  which  binds  every  natural  being  to  the 
laws  of  its  own  nature,  this  impossibility  of  being  aught 
else  than  what  is  appointed  by  nature,  to  be  a  wolf  of 
necessity,  and  of  necessity  to  be  a  lamb;  this  is  the 
hard  lot  of  natural  beings,  this  is  the  destiny  from 
which  man  is  ransomed  by  the  power  of  his  freedom. 
The  sculptor  in  the  fervour  of  his  inspiration, 
which  proceeds  from  the  image  that  lives  in  his  phan- 
tasy, searches  eagerly  for  the  marble  with  which,  as 
though  from  the  very  bosom  of  nature,  he  may  call  to 
life  the  phantom  of  his  mind.  He  fails  in  his  search,  and 
his  chisel  remains,  must  need  remain,  inactive.  The 
artist  then  in  the  utmost  intensity  of  his  creation  is 
baffled  by  an  external  impediment,  by  an  obstacle  of 
nature  which  therefore  seems  to  have  the  power  of  lim- 
iting his  creative  power.  But  when  we  consider  what 
the  artist  has  created  in  the  statue  itself,  in  this  living 
image  of  marble,  we  find  nothing  that  is  material.  The 
artist  has  transfused  into  the  stone  an  idea,  a  senti- 
ment, a  soul,  which  we,  under  the  influence  of  the  rav- 
ishing power  of  artistic  beauty,  are  able  to  seize  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  material  attributes;  as  though  we  no 
longer  possessed  eyes  for  the  whiteness  of  the  marble 
and  were  deprived  of  the  muscle  which  gives  us  the 
impression  of  its  physical  weight.  When  we  are  able 
thus  to  spiritualise  the  statue — and  we  do  so  every 
time  we  get  to  know  it  as  a  work  of  art — then  all  limi- 
tations 'that  might  be  imposed  on  the  creative  power  of 


54         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

the  artist  disappear.  For  we  see  no  longer  the  artist's 
phantasy,  and  then  his  arm,  and  then  his  hand,  his 
chisel,  the  block  which  he  is  carving;  all  we  see  is  the 
phantasy  soaring  untrammelled  in  the  infinite  world  of 
the  artist,  with  his  arm,  his  hand,  his  marble,  his  uni- 
verse which  is  totally  different  from  the  universe  in 
which  the  men  live  who  quarry  the  marble  and  move 
it  and  sell  it. 

There  is  a  point  of  view  from  which  we  see  the  spirit 
limited  and  enslaved  by  the  conditions  in  which  its 
life  is  unfolded.  But  there  is  a  higher  point  of  view  to 
which  we  must  ascend  if  we  are  bent  on  discovering 
our  freedom.  If  we  say,  as  the  psychologists  do,  this» 
is  a  soul  and  this  is  a  body,  here  are  sensations,  there 
is  motion,  this  is  thought  within  us  and  that  is  the  world 
outside  of  us,  then  we  are  obliged  to  consider  the  spirit 
as  conditioned  by  physical  happenings  to  which  in  some 
manner  our  internal  determinations  correspond.  It  is 
not  possible  to  see  without  eyes  and  without  the  light 
that  strikes  them.  It  is  equally  impossible  not  to 
see  when  we  have  eyes  and  are  surrounded  by  light, 
and  according  to  the  greater  or  lesser  velocity  of  the 
luminous  waves,  we  shall  of  necessity  discern  now  one 
colour  and  now  another.  And  the  objects  thus  seen  by 
us  will  determine  our  thoughts;  and  in  turn  our  voli- 
tions will  depend  upon  these  thoughts;  and  our  char- 
acters will  be  shaped  accordingly,  and  we  shall  be  this 
or  that  man  in  conformity  with  the  determination  of 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  55 

circumstances.  Man,  according  to  this  conception,  will 
be  the  result  of  time,  of  place,  of  environment,  of  every- 
thing except  of  his  own  self. 

But  there  is  a  higher  point  of  view  than  the  one  I 
have  just  described,  and  to  it  we  must  rise,  if  we  mean 
to  understand  our  nature, — this  marvellous  human  na- 
ture which  was  first  disclosed  to  our  consciousness  at 
the  advent  of  Christianity  and  in  the  course  of  time 
made  more  and  more  manifest,  until  it  now  loudly  pro- 
claims in  us  our  human  dignity  exalted  above  the 
forces  of  nature,  and  is  empowered  by  its  cognitive 
faculty  to  dominate  these  forces,  which  must  bend 
to  man's  purposes  without  ever  blocking  or  obstruct- 
ing his  progress.  Whosoever  says:  here  is  a  body 
and  there  is  a  soul — two  things,  one  outside  of  the 
other — such  a  man  does  not  consider  that  these  two 
things  are  two  terms  distinguished  and  differentiated 
by  thought  in  the  bosom  of  thought,  that  is  to  say, 
of  the  soul:  of  that  soul  which  is  truer  than  the 
other  for  the  obvious  reason  that  the  latter  thinks  and 
therefore  reveals  its  soul-nature  by  its  own  acts, 
whereas  the  former  is  the  object  of  thinking,  is  a  thing 
thought,  and  may  therefore  be  a  fallacious  entity,  an 
idolon,  and  a  simple  ens  rationis,  like  so  many  other 
things  that  are  thought  and  are  subsequently  found  to 
have  no  kind  of  subsistence.  In  speaking  of  sensation 
and  of  motion  which  generates  or  somehow  conditions 
sensation,  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  sensation  is 


56         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

truly  enough  a  determination  of  consciousness,  but  in 
the  same  manner  as  the  motion  which  is  encountered 
in  consciousness  when  the  latter,  in  thinking,  among 
other  things  thinks  the  displacement  of  objects  in  space. 

For  everything  is  within  consciousness,  and  no  way 
can  be  devised  of  issuing  forth  from  it.  We  say 
that  the  brain  is  external  to  consciousness,  and  that 
the  cranium  encloses  the  brain,  which  in  turn  is  en- 
veloped by  space  luminous  and  airy,  space  filled  with 
beautiful  plants  and  beautiful  animals;  yet  the  fact  re- 
mains that  brain  and  skull  and  everything  else  are  the 
potential  or  actual  object  of  our  thinking  faculty,  and 
cannot  but  remain  therefore  within  that  consciousness 
to  which  for  a  moment  we  supposed  them  to  be  external. 
We  may  start  thinking,  keeping  in  mind  this  inde- 
structible substance  of  our  thought;  and  as  we  proceed 
from  this  centre  in  which  we  have  placed  ourselves  as 
subjects  of  thinking,  and  advance  towards  an  ever- 
receding  horizon,  do  we  ever  come  in  sight  of  the  point 
where  we  must  pause  and  say:  "Here  my  thought  ends; 
here  something  begins  that  is  other  than  my  thought"? 
Thought  halts  only  before  mystery.  But  even  then  it 
thinks  it  as  mystery,  and  thinking  it,  transforms  it,  and 
then  proceeds,  and  so  never  really  stops. 

Such  being  the  true  life  of  the  spirit,  rightly  have  we 
called  it  universal.  At  every  throb  it  soars  through  the 
infinite,  without  ever  encountering  aught  else  than  its 
own  spiritual  actualisations.    In  this  life,  such  as  we 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION         57 

see  it  from  the  interior  when  we  do  not  fantastically 
materialise  it  with  our  imaginations,  the  spirit  is  free 
because  it  is  infinite. 

Education  then  posits  this  liberty  in  the  pupil,  for  it 
presupposes  in  him  a  susceptibility  of  development, — 
educability,  as  we  may  call  it.  The  learner  could 
not  possibly  be  educable,  that  is,  susceptible  of  receiv- 
ing instruction,  unless  he  were  able  to  think.  But 
thinking,  we  have  already  seen,  signifies  freedom.  And 
not  only  is  freedom  presupposed  by  the  educator,  but 
it  is  the  very  thing  he  is  aiming  at  in  his  work.  As  a 
result  of  his  teaching,  liberty  must  be  developed  in 
the  same  manner  that  the  capacity  for  thinking  and  all 
modes  of  spiritual  activity  are  developed.  For  the  de- 
velopment of  thought  is  a  development  of  reflection,  a 
constant  increase  of  control  over  our  own  ideas,  over 
the  content  of  our  consciousness,  over  our  character, 
over  our  whole  being  in  relation  to  every  other  being. 
And  this  growth  of  power  is  what  we  mean  when  we 
speak  of  the  development  of  our  freedom.  It  has  been 
said,  in  fact,  that  education  consists  in  liberating  the 
individual  from  his  instincts.  Surely,  education  is  the 
formation  of  man,  and  when  we  say  man  we  mean 
liberty. 

Here  we  stumble  upon  our  antinomy.  How  are 
we  to  reconcile  this  presupposition  and  this  aim  of  the 
educator  with  his  interference  in  the  personality  of  the 
pupil?    This  interposition  surely  signifies  that  the  dis- 


58         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

ciple  must  not  be  left  to  himself  and  to  his  own  re- 
sources; that  he  has  to  clash  with  something  or  some- 
body that  is  not  his  own  personality.  Education  im- 
phes  a  dualism  of  terms,  the  teacher  and  the  learner; 
and  it  is  this  dualism  which  destroys  the  freedom,  which 
sets  a  limit,  and  therefore  annihilates  infinity  in  which 
freedom  consists.  The  disciple  who  encounters  a 
stronger  mastering  will,  an  intellect  equipped  with  a 
multitude  of  ideas,  with  an  experience  which  forestalls 
his  own  powers  of  observation,  and  his  innate  zeal  for 
investigation,  sees  in  this  more  potent  personality  either 
a  barrier  obstructing  his  progress  towards  a  goal  which 
he  spontaneously  would  attain;  or  else  a  goad  which 
hurries  him  along  the  way  which  he  would  have  indeed 
chosen  of  his  own  accord,  but  along  which  he  would 
have  liked  to  advance  freely,  calmly,  joyously,  as  our 
Vittorino  da  Feltre  would  have  it,  and  without  any  un- 
welcome compulsion.  This  pupil  then  would  want  to  be 
left  alone  in  order  that  he  might  be  free,  as  free  as 
God  when  as  yet  the  world  was  not  and  he  created 
it  out  of  nothing  by  his  joyous  fiat,  symbol  of  the 
loftiest  spiritual  liberty. 

For  these  reasons  we  have  come  to  believe  that  the 
most  serious  problem  of  education  is  the  agreement  be- 
tween the  liberty  of  the  pupil  and  the  authority  of  the 
teacher.  Therefore  great  masters  who  meditated  on 
the  subject  of  education,  from  Rousseau  to  Tolstoi, 
have  exalted  the  rights  of  liberty,  but  have  fallen  into 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION  59 

the  opposite  extreme  of  denying  the  duty  to  authority, 
and  have  pursued  in  their  abstractions  a  vague  and  un- 
realisable  ideal  of  negative  education. 

But  we  must  not  cling  to  negatives.  It  should  be 
our  purpose  to  construct,  not  to  destroy.  The  school, 
this  glorious  inheritance  of  human  experiences,  this 
ever-glowing  hearth  where  the  human  spirit  kindles  and 
sublimates  life  as  an  object  of  constant  criticism  and  of 
undying  love,  may  be  transformed,  but  cannot  be  de- 
stroyed. Let  the  school  live,  and  let  us  cling  to  the 
teacher  and  maintain  his  authority,  which  limits  the 
spontaneity  and  the  liberty  of  the  pupil.  For  this  limi- 
tation is  only  apparent. 

Apparent,  however,  when  we  deal  with  true  educa- 
tion. For  the  school  has  for  centuries  been  the  victim 
of  a  grave  injustice.  People  have  been  led  to  consider 
the  classroom  as  a  place  of  confinement  and  of  punish- 
ment, and  teachers  have  been  cruelly  lashed  by  the 
scourge  of  ridicule  cracked  in  the  face  of  pedantry. 
Through  this  injustice,  the  school  has  been  burdened 
with  faults  that  are  not  its  own,  and  teachers,  genuine 
educators,  have  been  confused  with  the  pedantic  drill- 
masters  that  are  the  negation  of  intelligent  education 
and  of  inspired  ethical  discipline.  In  order  to  see 
whether  education  really  limits  the  free  activity  of  the 
pupil,  we  must  not  consider  abstractly  any  school, 
which  may  not  be  after  all  a  school.  ^We  must  examine 
an  institution  at  the  moment  and  in  the  act  which 


6o         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

realises  its  significance — when  the  instructor  teaches 
and  the  pupils  are  learning.  Such  a  moment  should  at 
least  hypothetically  be  granted  to  exist. 

Let  us  take  a  concrete  example  and  consider  a 
teacher  in  the  act  of  giving  lessons  in  Italian.  Where 
is  this  something  which  I  have  called  the  Italian  lan- 
guage? In  the  grammar,  perchance?  Or  in  the  dic- 
tionary? Yes,  partly.  Provided  grammar  can  invest 
its  rules  with  the  life  of  the  individual  examples  that 
together  constitute  the  expressive  power  of  the  living 
language;  and  provided  the  dictionary  does  not  wither 
up  all  words  in  the  arid  abstraction  of  alphabetical 
classification;  does  not  hang  each  of  them  by  itself  as 
limbs  torn  from  the  living  body  of  the  speech  in  which 
they  had  so  often  resounded  and  to  which  they  will 
be  joined  again  in  the  fulness  of  life  and  expressive- 
ness; but  does  instead  incorporate,  as  every  good  dic- 
tionary should,  complete  phrases,  living  utterances  of 
great  authors  or  perhaps  of  that  nameless  many-souled 
writer  that  somewhat  confusedly  is  called  the  people. 

But  more  than  in  the  grammar  and  more  than  in  the 
dictionary,  the  word  is  and  exists  in  the  writers  them- 
selves. The  teacher  should  there  point  it  out,  as  he 
guides  his  pupils  through  the  authors  who  were  able 
to  express  most  powerfully  our  common  thoughts.  To 
his  students  who  are  striving  to  learn  the  language — 
that  is  the  writers — he  reads  for  example  the  poems  of 
Leopardi.    The  poet's  word,  his  soul  hovers  over  the 


THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION         6i 

classroom,  as  the  master  reads.  It  penetrates  into  the 
minds  of  the  pupils,  hushes  every  other  sentiment,  re- 
moves every  other  thought,  and  throbs  within  them, 
stirs  them,  arouses  them.  It  becomes  one  with  the  soul 
of  each  pupil,  which  speaks  to  itself  a  language  of  its 
own,  using,  truly  enough,  the  words  of  Leopardi,  but  of 
a  Leopardi  who  is  peculiar  to  each  of  the  listeners. 
Under  this  spell,  the  pupil  who  hears  the  poet's  word 
echoing  in  the  depths  of  his  being,  will  he  stop  to  reflect 
that  this  word  is  the  echo  of  an  echo?  That  he  is  under 
the  influence  of  something  repeated  after  a  first  utter- 
ance? Our  own  experience  answers:  No!  But  if  any 
of  the  audience  become  absent-minded,  if  they  should 
lose  the  rapt  delight  of  poetical  exaltation  communi- 
cated to  their  soul  by  the  teacher's  voice,  and  should 
say  that  the  word  they  hear  is  not  their  own  but  the 
master's,  or  rather,  the  poet's,  then  they  would  commit 
a  serious  blunder.  For  the  word  they  intently  listen  to 
in  their  soul  is  their  own,  exclusively  their  own.  Leo- 
pardi does  not  impart  any  poesy  to  him  who,  through 
his  love,  his  study,  and  the  intensity  of  his  feelings,  is 
unable  to  live  his  own  poetry.  And  Leopardi  (or  the 
teacher  who  reads  him)  is  not  materially  external  to 
the  enraptured  listener;  he  is  his  own  Leopardi,  such 
as  he  has  been  able  to  create  for  himself.  The  master, 
as  St.  Augustine  long  ago  warned  us,  is  within  us. 

He  is  within  us  even  if  we  see  him  in  front  of  us, 
away  from  us  seated  in  his  chair.    For  in  so  far  as  he 


62         THE  ANTINOMY  OF  EDUCATION 

is  a  real  teacher,  he  is  ever  the  object  of  our  conscious- 
ness, surrounded  and  uphfted  in  our  spirit  by  the  rever- 
ence of  our  feehngs  and  by  our  trustful  affection.  He 
is  our  teacher,  he  is  our  very  soul. 

The  dualism  then  is  non-existent  when  we  are  edu- 
cating. We  do  notice  it  before,  and  we  are  thus  brought 
to  examine  the  antinomy;  but  the  difficulty  is  removed 
by  the  very  act  of  education  itself,  by  the  first  word 
that  comes  to  the  pupils'  ears  from  the  lips  of  the 
teacher.  The  dualism  however  cannot  be  resolved  if 
the  master's  word  fails  to  reach  the  pupils'  soul,  but 
then  under  those  circumstances  there  is  no  education. 
But  even  in  such  cases,  if  the  teacher  is  not  sluggish, 
if  he  displays  a  real  spiritual  power,  the  abiding  exis- 
tence of  the  barrier  between  the  two  minds  proves  help- 
ful to  the  spiritual  growth  of  the  learner,  who,  because 
of  his  incoercible  freedom,  is  impelled  by  the  insuf- 
ficiency of  the  master  to  affirm  his  personality  with  in- 
creased vigour.  So  that  the  school  is  a  hearth  of  liberty, 
even  in  spite  of  the  intentions  of  the  teacher.  A 
school  without  freedom  is  a  lifeless  institution. 


CHAPTER  IV 

REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  IN  THE 
CONCEPT  OF  CULTURE 

We  found  it  necessary  in  the  previous  chapter  to  pass 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete  in  order  to  arrive 
at  the  truth.  The  universality  of  the  individual  was 
made  clear  when  for  the  empirical  concept  of  the 
individual,  abstractly  considered,  we  substituted  the 
deeper  and  more  speculative  one  of  the  individual  him- 
self in  the  concreteness  of  his  relationships.  In  like 
manner,  the  fundamental  antinomy  of  education  was  re- 
solved as  soon  as  we  replaced  the  abstract  idea  of  the 
dualism  of  teacher  and  pupil,  by  the  idea  of  their  intrin- 
sic, profound,  unseverable  unity  as  it  gradually  works 
out  and  is  actualised  in  the  process  of  education.  We 
were  enabled  therefore  to  conclude  that  the  real  teacher 
is  within  the  soul  of  the  pupil,  or,  better  still,  the  teacher 
is  the  pupil  himself  in  the  dynamism  of  his  develop- 
ment. So  that,  far  from  limiting  the  autonomy  of  the 
disciple,  the  master,  as  the  propulsive  element  of  the 
pupil's  spontaneity,  penetrates  his  personality,  not 
to  suppress  it,  but  to  help  its  impulses  and  facilitate 
its  infinite  development. 

The  same  method  of  resorting  to  the  concrete  now 

63 


64  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

leads  us  to  the  determination  of  a  third  essential  ele- 
ment in  the  process  of  education.  We  have  spoken  of 
the  master,  and  we  have  spoken  of  the  pupil, — of  the 
latter  as  becoming  actual  as  universal  personality,  of 
the  former  as  becoming  identical  with  this  same  per- 
sonality. We  must  now  take  up  the  connecting  link 
between  the  two,  that  is,  culture.  By  culture  we  mean 
the  content  of  education,  the  presupposed  heirloom 
which  in  the  course  of  time  must  pass  from  the  teacher 
to  the  pupil.  This  spiritual  content,  in  being  appre- 
hended, appears  under  different  aspects:  as  erudition 
and  information;  as  formation  of  personal  capacities 
and  training  of  spiritual  activities;  as  art  and  science; 
as  experience  of  life  and  as  concept  and  ideal  of  exist- 
ence; as  simple  cognition  and  as  a  norm  of  conduct. 
It  includes  everything  that  comes  within  the  scope  of 
teaching,  and  from  whose  value  education  derives  its 
peculiar  worth. 

Culture,  so  defined,  may  be  conceived  of  in  two 
ways;  and  in  as  much  as  their  differences  are  highly 
significant  in  the  sphere  of  education  as  elsewhere, 
we  must  now  somewhat  carefully  consider  them. 

These  two  ways  correspond  to  two  opposite  concep- 
tions of  reality,  and  as  such  they  pertain  to  philosophy. 
But  men  in  general  constantly  have  recourse  to  them, 
and  so  it  happens  that  people  frequently  indulge  in 
philosophic  speculations  without  knowing  it;  and  much 
philosophising  goes  on  outside  of  the  schools  of  the 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  65 

specialists,  who  are  few  compared  to  the  great  number 
of  those  who  in  their  own  way  handle  genuine  concepts 
of  philosophy. 

Let  us  begin  from  the  most  obvious  of  these  concepts, 
from  the  one  which  is  fundamental  and  original  to  the 
human  mind.  Our  whole  life,  if  we  consider  the  data 
of  experience,  seems  to  unfold  itself  on  the  substratum 
of  a  natural  world,  which  therefore,  far  from  depending 
on  human  life,  represents  the  very  condition  of  it. 
In  order  to  live,  to  act,  to  produce,  or  in  any  way  to 
exercise  an  influence  on  the  external  world,  we  must, 
first  of  all,  be  born.  Our  birth  is  the  effect  of  a  life 
which  is  not  our  life,  which  step  by  step  rises  and  grows 
and  spreads  until  it  gathers  all  nature  within  itself. 
This  nature  existed  before  we  were  born,  it  will  con- 
tinue to  be  after  we  are  all  dead.  Men  draw  their  life 
from  an  organic  and  inorganic  nature  which  had  to 
exist  in  order  that  they  might  come  into  being.  When 
nature  will  cease  to  provide  these  conditions,  human 
life,  according  to  this  point  of  view,  will  come  to  an 
end;  but  nature,  transformed,  chilled,  darkened,  dead, 
will  yet  continue  to  be. 

On  this  living  trunk  of  nature  our  own  life  is  grafted; 
animals  come  into  existence,  and  among  animals  the 
human  species.  Each  of  us,  as  he  comes  into  the 
world,  finds  this  nature,  developed,  abundant,  diversi- 
fied in  millions  of  forms,  traversed  by  innumerable 
forces,  organised  up  to  the  most  highly  developed  struc- 


66  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

tures,  man  included.  We  find  this  nature,  and  we  begin 
to  study  it.  We  examine  its  parts  one  by  one,  their 
complexity,  and  the  difference  of  their  functioning. 
For  each  one  of  them  has  its  peculiar  way  of  being  and 
of  acting;  it  has  its  "laws."  The  aggregate  of  these 
laws,  mutually  corresponding,  and  integrating  one 
another,  constitutes  the  natural  world — reality — as  it 
stands  before  us.  With  this  external  reality  we  strive 
to  become  acquainted;  and  in  order  that  we  may  live 
in  it  we  either  adapt  ourselves  to  it,  or  adapt  its  con- 
ditions to  ourselves.  In  this  reality  too  we  acquire  the 
knowledge  of  the  needs  of  our  organism  and  of  the 
means  by  which  they  may  be  satisfied, — the  ratio,  so 
to  speak,  between  natural  desires  and  controlled  re- 
sources. 

We  are  also  told  that  our  organism  is  in  constant 
change  and  hurries  on  to  its  destination,  to  our  death, 
which  we  abhor  as  passionately  as  we  cherish  life,  but 
which  we  accept  because  such  is  the  law  of  human 
life,  fatal  and  inexorable;  for  reality  is  what  it  is, 
and  we  must  adapt  ourselves  to  it. 

But  if  reality  appears  as  constituted  before  us,  as 
therefore  conditioning  our  existence,  and  as  existing  in- 
dependently of  us;  if  it  is  indifferent  to  reality  whether 
we  be  in  it  or  not;  if  we  are  truly  extraneous  to  it,  the 
conclusion  must  then  be  drawn  that  we,  from  the  out- 
side, presume  to  know  reality  and  to  move  about  it 
without  being  this  reality  itself  or  any  part  of  it.    For 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  67 

all  reality  is  thought  by  us  as  a  connected  whole, 
though  indeed  vaguely;  in  its  totality  it  is  regarded  as 
an  object  known  to  us,  but  existing  in  utter  independ- 
ence of  this  knowledge  of  ours.  Its  whole  process  is 
therefore  complete  in  objective  nature,  which  conditions 
our  spiritual  life,  and  this  in  turn  can  mirror  reality 
but  can  never  be  a  part  of  it. 

This  then  is  the  primitive  and  fundamental  concept 
that  the  human  mind  forms  of  reality.  In  consequence 
of  it  man  feels  that  he  is  enclosed  within  himself:  he 
knows  he  is  producing  the  dreams  and  the  fair  images 
of  art;  that  he  can  construct  inwardly  abstract  geo- 
metrical figures  and  numbers;  that  he  can  generate 
ideas.  But  he  also  feels  that  between  these  ideal  crea- 
tions of  his  own,  and  the  solid,  sound,  real  living  forms 
of  nature,  there  is  an  abyss.  He  must,  indeed,  fall  in 
with  nature,  in  the  process  of  generating  other  living 
beings  of  ilesh  and  blood.  He  must  avail  himself  of 
nature  by  first  submitting  to  its  unfailing  laws,  if  he 
intends  to  give  body,  that  is,  real  existence,  to  the  ideal 
conceptions  of  his  intelligence.  On  one  side  then  we 
have  thought;  on  the  opposite  side  reality, — that  real- 
ity, Nature. 

This  conception  at  a  certain  moment  is  transformed 
but  not  substantially  changed.  As  we  begin  to  reflect, 
we  notice  that  this  nature,  as  known  to  us,  is  not  the 
real  external  nature,  the  nature  which  is  unfolded  in 
time  and  space,  which  we  see  before  our  eyes,  an  object 


68  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

perceptible  by  our  bodily  senses.  We  conclude  then, 
that  nature  as  known  to  us  is  an  idea;  that  Nature 
is  one  thing  and  the  idea  of  nature  another.  And  if  we 
think  this  perceptible  nature  and  have  faith  in  its  real- 
ity and  in  the  reality  of  its  determinations,  this  nature 
in  which  reality  is  made  to  consist  is  the  nature  which 
is  within  our  thought, — the  idea  of  nature;  or  in  other 
words,  thought  considered  as  the  content  of  our  mind. 
This  thought  is  the  aim  of  all  the  inquiries  by  which 
we  strive  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  nature, 
and  which  we  finally  discover  or  at  least  ought  to  dis- 
cover when  we  succeed  in  attaining  true  knowledge. 
We  say  that  we  know  nature  only  when  we  are 
able  to  recognise  an  idea  in  nature:  that  is,  an  idea  in 
each  of  its  elements,  and  a  system  of  ideas  in  the  whole 
of  nature.  So  that  what  we  know  is  not  really  nature 
as  it  presents  itself  to  our  senses,  still  less  nature  as 
it  is,  before  it  has  impressed  our  senses;  but  nature  as 
disclosed  to  us  by  thought,  as  it  exists  in  thought — 
i.  e.,  the  idea.  And  this  idea  must  be  real,  otherwise 
nature,  which  has  its  truth  in  the  idea,  could  not  be 
real.  Not  only  is  it  real,  it  is  that  reality  itself  which 
a  moment  ago  we  were  led  to  think  of  as  consisting  in 
external  perceptible  nature. 

This  reality  makes  the  life  of  our  thought  possible, 
but  it  is  not  a  product  of  this  life.  It  is  a  condition 
and  a  prerequisite  of  thought,  and  as  such  it  does  not 
exist  because  we  think  it:  but  rather  we  are  able  to 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  69 

think  it  because  it  exists.  It  is  eternal  truth,  at  first 
unknown  to  man,  then  by  him  desired.  In  quest  of  it 
he  gradually  lifts  on  all  sides  the  veil  which  hides  it 
from  his  eyes,  without  however  hoping  that  it  will  ever 
entirely  disclose  to  him  its  divine  countenance. 

According  to  this  transformed  point  of  view,  then, 
reality,  which  in  the  first  instance  appeared  to  be 
natural,  that  is  physical  or  material,  has  now  become 
ideal.  But  even  thus  it  remains  extraneous  to  thought, 
and  unconcerned  with  the  presence  or  the  absence  of 
it;  transcending  the  entire  life  of  the  human  spirit,  and 
incessantly  subject  to  the  danger  of  error.  Whereas 
the  idea  as  a  complexus  of  all  ideas  that  can  be 
thought  (but  have  not  been  thought,  or  rather  have 
not  all  been  thought)  is  the  beacon  of  light  that  guides 
the  way  of  man  in  the  ocean  of  life;  it  is  Truth  pure 
and  perfect. 

This  idea  evidently  must  not  be  confused  with  the 
purely  subjective  ideas  which  we  spoke  of  above,  and 
which  as  such  are  extraneous  to  reality.  This  idea  is 
reality  itself  idealised.  It  is  to  this  idea,  for  instance, 
that  we  all  appeal  when  we  affirm  the  existence  of  a  jus- 
tice superior  to  that  of  which  man  is  capable,  of  a  jus- 
tice in  behalf  of  which  man  is  in  duty  bound  to  sacrifice 
his  private  interests,  and  even  his  life.  This  idea  we 
have  in  mind  when  we  speak  of  a  sacred  and  inviolable 
right,  whereas  in  daily  practice  there  is  perhaps  no  right 
which  is  not  more  or  less  trampled  upon.    This  idea 


70  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

is  before  us  when  we  consider  truth  in  general:  truth 
which  is  indeed  real,  even  though  it  may  not  be  seen  or 
felt,  much  more  real  than  physical  nature,  for  nature 
comes  to  life  and  dies  and  constantly  changes,  while 
truth  is  motionless,  impassible,  eternal.  In  its  bosom 
then  we  must  try  to  find  everything  that  we  want  to 
accept  as  not  illusory. 

But  in  substituting  the  conception  of  an  ideal  reality 
for  the  conception  of  a  material  one,  reality  as  a  whole 
continues  to  be  something  contradistinguished  from  us, 
an  object  indeed  of  our  thoughts,  but  one  which  can- 
not be  conceived  as  it  is  in  itself  except  by  abstracting 
it  from  our  own  thought. 

We,  then,  who  open  our  eager  eyes  in  the  endeavour 
to  discover,  to  know,  to  orient  ourselves,  to  live  in  the 
midst  of  a  known  and  familiar  world;  we,  thinking  be- 
ings, and  not  simply  things  of  nature,  beings  who  as 
such  affirm  our  personality  in  the  very  act  of  saying 
We,  we  then  are  of  less  account  than  the  earthworms 
which  crawl  along  until  they  die  unknown  to  the  foot 
that  crushes  them.  We  are  nothing  because  we  do  not 
belong  to  reality;  we  deceive  ourselves  into  believing 
that  we  are  doing  something  on  our  own  account,  but 
in  truth  we  renounce  every  desire  of  doing  or  creating 
something  original,  something  we  might  really  call 
ours;  and  we  abandon  ourselves,  we  drift  away  con- 
fused with  external  reality  and  submerged  under  the 
irresistible  current  of  its  laws. 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  71 

This  conception  of  life,  which  I  have  given  only  in 
its  barest  outline,  is  a  very  common  one.  For  thou- 
sands of  years  it  has  persisted  in  the  philosophical 
field,  the  nourishment  and  the  torment  of  the  greatest 
intellects  of  humanity.  But  humanity  could  not  rest 
satisfied  with  a  world  conceived  in  such  a  manner; 
with  a  world  which,  whether  we  call  it  nature  or  idea, 
is  at  bottom  always  nature.  For  by  nature  we  under- 
stand not  only  that  reality  which  is  in  space  and  time, 
but  also  every  reality  which  is  not  the  product  of 
our  will,  nor  the  result  in  general  of  that  spiritual 
activity,  which  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  all  human  acts 
reveals  a  diversity  of  values,  extending  from  the  sub- 
limity of  heroism  and  of  genius  to  the  lowest  depths 
of  cowardice  and  to  the  gloom  of  sloth.  Nor  can  it 
be  considered  as  the  product  or  result  of  a  process; 
for  it  is  immediate  reality,  original  and  immutable. 
In  a  world  which  is  Nature,  man  is  an  intruder,  a 
stranger  without  rights,  without  even  real  existence. 
As  a  being,  he  is  destined  to  be  suppressed;  nay,  he 
does  not  even  exist.  And  his  life,  with  all  his  aspira- 
tions, his  needs,  his  claims,  is  but  a  fallacious  illusion 
which  will  sooner  or  later  collapse.  Man  cannot  help 
succumbing  in  a  world  where  there  is  no  place  for 
him.  Therefore  a  more  or  less  cloudy  gust  of  pessi- 
mism lowers  over  the  consciousness  that  has  stopped 
at  this  conception  of  reality.  Leopardi  is  the  most 
eloquent  expression  of  the  intense  misery  to  which 


72  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

man  is  condemned  in  such  circumstances,  or  to  which 
rather  he  condemns  himself.  He  condemns  himself  be- 
cause he  has  it  in  his  power  to  conceive  reality  other- 
wise. For  let  him  ponder  seriously  and  he  will  succeed 
in  convincing  himself  that  the  naturalistic  conception  of 
reality  is  absurd.  Philosophy  has  so  demonstrated  this 
truth,  that  he  who  now  strives  eagerly  to  attain  a  moral 
point  of  view  in  harmony  with  established  principles 
can  no  longer  repeat  that  note  of  pessimism,  can  no 
longer  assert  that  the  world  is  nature,  or  that  it  is  the 
eternal  idea  from  which  nature  is  derived  and  by  which 
it  is  made  intelligible.  Such  views  are  no  longer  ten- 
able. 

The  teacher  who,  because  of  his  lofty  mission,  claims 
the  right  of  forming  souls,  of  arousing  those  powerful 
moral  energies  which  alone  empower  man  to  live  as  a 
human  being,  may  not,  must  not  be  ignorant  of  the 
fact  that  the  contention  of/ naturalism,  which  makes  of 
/  the  world  an  abstract  reality,  presupposed  by  the 
human  spirit  and  therefore  anterior  and  indifferent  to 
it,  is  a  belief  that  has  been  superseded  and  surpassed 
by  modern  thought.  The  teacher  too  can  easily  grasp 
this  view,  for  in  gathering  all  the  arguments  by  which, 
along  different  lines,  the  new  conception  of  reality  has 
been  attained,  we  find  that  the  whole  matter  reduces 
itself  to  a  simple  and  very  easy  reflection.  Very  easy 
in  itself,  though  it  may  seem  difficult  to  the  greater 
part  of  us, — to  the  superficial  thinkers,  to  the  absent- 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  73 

minded,  to  those  who  lack  the  strength  neces- 
sary to  face  the  great  responsibility  imposed  upon  us 
by  the  truth  which  is  derived  from  this  reflection. 

For  naturalism  reduces  itself  to  the  affirmation  that 
we  think  nature,  but  do  not  ourselves  exist;  nature 
alone  exists.  We  do  not  exist  and  yet  we  think,  and 
we  think  of  nature  as  existing.  We  do  not  exist  and 
yet  nature  exists,  of  whose  existence  we  have  no  other 
testimony  than  our  thoughts.  And  if  thought  is  a 
shadow,  what  will  reality  then  be?  The  ''dream  of  a 
shadow,"  in  the  words  of  the  Greek  poet.  Is  it  pos- 
sible for  us  to  stop  at  this  conclusion?  Is  it  possible 
for  an  inexistent  thing  to  vouch  for  the  existence  of 
something  which  we  know  only  from  its  attestations? 
Such  is  the  absurd  position  we  are  forced  into  when  we 
assume  that  Thought,  in  equipoise  with  reality,  remains 
outside  of  it  and  leaves  it  out  of  its  own  self. 

We  give  the  name  of  realism  to  that  manner  of  think- 
ing which  makes  all  reality  consist  in  an  external  exist- 
ence, abstract  and  separate  from  thought,  and  makes 
real  knowledge  consist  in  the  conforming  of  our  ideas  to 
external  things.  By  idealism  on  the  other  hand  we 
mean  that  higher  point  of  view  from  which  we  discover 
the  impossibility  of  conceiving  a  reality  which  is  not 
the  reality  of  thought  itself.  For  it  reality  is  not  the 
idea  as  a  mere  object  of  the  mind,  which  therefore  can 
exist  outside  of  the  mind,  and  must  exist  there  in 
order  that  the  mind  may  eventually  have  the  means 


74  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

of  thinking  it.  Reality  is  this  very  thought  itself 
by  which  we  think  all  things,  and  which  surely 
must  be  something  if  by  means  of  it  we  want 
somehow  to  affirm  any  reality  whatsoever,  and 
must  be  a  real  activity  if,  in  the  act  of  thinking,  it  will 
not  entangle  itself  in  the  enchanted  web  of  dreams, 
but  will  instead  give  us  the  life  of  the  real  world.  If 
it  is  not  conceivable  that  such  activity  could  ever  go 
forth  from  itself  and  penetrate  the  presumably  exist- 
ent world  of  matter,  then  it  means  that  it  has  no  need 
of  issuing  from  itself,  in  order  to  come  in  contact  with 
real  existence;  it  means  that  the  reality  which  we  call 
material  and  assume  to  be  external  to  thought  is  in 
some  way  illusory;  and  that  the  true  reality  is  that 
which  is  being  realised  by  the  activity  of  thought  itself. 
For  there  is  no  way  of  thinking  any  reality  except  by 
setting  thought  as  the  basis  of  it. 

This  is  the  conception,  or,  if  you  will,  the  faith,  not 
only  of  modern  philosophy,  but  of  consciousness  itself 
in  general,  of  that  consciousness  which  was  gradually 
formed  and  moulded  under  the  influence  of  the  deeply 
moral  sentiment  of  life  fostered  by  Christianity.  For  it 
was  Christ  that  first  opposed  to  nature  and  to  the  flesh 
a  truer  reality, — not  the  world  in  which  man  is  born, 
but  that  world  to  which  he  must  uplift  himself:  that 
world  in  which  he  has  to  live,  not  because  it  is  anterior 
to  him,  but  because  he  must  create  it  by  his  will:  and 
this  world  is  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit. 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  75 

In  accordance  with  this  conception  there  is,  properly 
speaking,  no  reality:  there  is  a  spirit  which  creates  real- 
ity, which  therefore  is  self-made  and  not  the  product 
of  nature.  The  realist  speaks  of  external  existence,  of 
a  world  into  which  man  is  admitted  and  to  which  he 
must  adapt  himself.  But  the  idealist  knows  only  what 
the  spirit  does,  what  man  acts.  A  nature,  ever  at  work 
in  the  progress  of  the  spirit,  throbs  in  the  soul  of  man, 
who  with  his  intellect  and  his  will  re-creates  it  by  its 
restless,  unceasing  motion.  It  is  a  world  which  is  never 
created,  because  the  entire  past  flows  and  becomes 
actual  in  that  form  which  is  peculiar  to  it  and  in  which 
it  exists,  namely,  the  present, — history  in  the  inces- 
sant rhythm  of  its  becoming,  in  the  ever-living  act  of 
self-production. 

On  what  side  of  the  controversy  should  the  teacher 
stand  who  means  to  absorb  into  his  soul  the  life  of  the 
school?  Will  he  with  the  realists  believe  in  a  reality 
which  must  be  observed  and  verified?  Or  will  he  as  an 
idealist  trust  that  the  only  world  is  the  one  which  is 
to  be  constructed  by  him;  that  in  all  this  task  he 
can  rely  only  on  the  creative  activity  of  the  spirit  that 
moves  within  us,  ever  unsatisfied  with  what  is,  inces- 
santly aspiring  for  what  does  not  yet  exist,  for  what 
must  come  to  be  as  being  the  only  thing  which  deserves 
to  exist  and  to  fulfil  life? 

There  are  then  these  two  ways  of  conceiving  culture, 
the  realistic  and  the  idealistic.    By  the  former  we  are 


76  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

led  to  imagine  that  man's  spirit  is  empty,  and  that  no 
nourishment  can  come  to  it  except  from  the  outside 
world,  from  those  external  elements  which  he  can  ac- 
quire because  they  exist  prior  to  the  activity  by  which 
he  assimilates  them.  The  latter,  admitting  only  what 
is  derived  from  the  developing  life  of  the  spirit,  can 
conceive  of  culture  solely  as  an  immanent  product  of 
this  very  life,  and  separable  from  it  only  by  abstrac- 
tion. 

It  is  evident  that  the  ordinarily  accepted  view  of 
educators  to-day  is  realistic  rather  than  otherwise. 
The  ideal  and  therefore  the  historical  origin  of  the 
school  itself  is  intimately  connected  with  the  realistic 
presupposition.  For  the  school  begins  when  man  for 
the  first  time  becomes  aware  of  the  existence  of  a  store 
of  accumulated  culture  which  should  be  protected  from 
dispersion.  Grammar,  for  instance,  exists  before  the 
notion  of  teaching  it  arises.  Men  already  possess  a 
language  when  they  make  up  their  minds  to  teach  it  to 
their  children.  Self-taught  and  inventive  genius,  by 
new  observation  and  discoveries,  gives  rise  to  new  dis- 
ciplines; and  men,  discovering  the  value  of  such  disci- 
plines, determine  to  institute  a  school  where  they  may 
be  cultivated  and  handed  down  to  the  coming  genera- 
tions. In  general  then,  first  comes  knowledge  ;  then  the 
school  as  a  depository  of  it.  It  may  be  granted  that 
the  progress  of  learning  is  made  possible  or  at  least 
accentuated  by  educational  institutions;  but  the  fact  re- 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  77 

mains  that  the  school  is  founded  on  pre-existing  knowl- 
edge. Science,  arts,  customs  must  exist  before  they  can 
be  taught  to  others,  and  they  do  exist,  but  not  in  the 
spirit  of  the  one  who  is  to  acquire  them,  who  must 
appropriate  them  as  they  are  in  themselves.  The 
Iliad  exists:  Homer  sang:  the  poems  attributed  to 
him  were  collected  into  an  epic  from  which  we  learn 
of  the  beliefs,  of  the  aspirations,  and  of  the  memories 
that  were  dear  to  the  ancient  Greeks,  and  every  culti- 
vated person  to-day  must  derive  from  them  his  own 
spiritual  substance.  The  teacher  shows  to  his  pupils 
how  best  to  read,  how  to  understand  that  epic  which  is 
a  treasure  of  the  past  bequeathed  not  only  to  the  mod- 
ern Greeks  but  to  humanity  in  general.  For  we  all 
profit  from  this  inherited  spiritual  wealth  in  the  same 
planner  that  every  man  that  comes  into  the  world  en- 
joys the  light  and  the  heat  of  the  sun  which  he  surely 
did  not  kindle  in  heaven. 

The  fact  that  culture,  as  the  subject  matter  of  educa- 
tion, exists  before  the  exercise  of  that  spiritual  activity 
which  can  be  educated  only  through  its  means,  seems  to 
the  realist  a  condition  without  which  the  school  cannot 
arise.  Only  as  culture  develops  and  spreads  does  the 
school  grx)w  and  expand;  and,  in  the  progress  of  civi- 
lisation, as  culture  becomes  specialised,  the  school  is 
correspondingly  differentiated  into  institutions  of  ever- 
growing specialisation.  For  the  school  can  but  follow 
and  reflect  the  advance  of  science,  of  letters,  of  art, — 


78  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

of  humanit}'^  in  general  in  all  its  strives  to  perpetuate. 
All  this  evidently  can  be  maintained  only  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  realist.    For  him  the  school  is  con- 
cerned not  with  those  that  already  know  and  therefore 
have  no  need  of  it,  but  for  those  who  are  still  ignorant. 
For  them  it  is  instituted;  it  ministers  to  their  needs, 
and  is  therefore  adjusted  in  the  direction  in  which  it 
believes  their  spirit  should  be  oriented.    In  the  school 
of  physicians,  there  is  not  medicine  but  the  learning  of 
it,  for  if  the  art  of  healing  were  already  mastered  as  it 
seems  to  be  in  the  case  of  the  professors,  there  would 
be  no  need  of  a  medical  school.    There  is  indeed  the 
professor  in  the  lecture  room;  but  he  is  there  only  for 
the  learners,  and  his  role  has  no  meaning  except  in 
relation  to  their  needs.    He  is  the  possessor  of  science, 
and  as  such  he  teaches  and  does  not  learn.    The  school 
then  is  not  the  possession  of  culture,  but  the  develop- 
ment of  a  spiritual  life  aspiring  to  this  possession; 
and  this  aspiration  is  possible  because  of  the  existence 
of  the  teacher  who  has  already  mastered  it,  who  pos- 
sesses it,  not  as  his  own  property,  but  as  social  wealth 
entrusted  to  him  for  the  use  of  everybody.    He  himself 
is  only  an  instrument  of  communication.    Culture  ante- 
dates him;  it  does  so  even  when  he  is  the  author  of 
it.    For  it  is  not  possible  for  him  to  impart  it  to  others 
until  he  has  first  elaborated  it  himself,  and  not  until 
the  merits  of  his  contributions  have  been  in  part  at 
least  recognised  by  the  world, 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  79 

The  school  to  the  realist  presupposes  the  library. 
The  teacher  needs  books,  plenty  of  books  in  order 
to  increase  his  knowledge  and  thus  become  better 
acquainted  with  that  world  through  which  he  has  to 
pilot  his  pupils.  In  tlie  books,  then,  in  the  long  shelves, 
culture  lives:  in  the  innumerable  volumes  that  no  one 
ever  hopes  to  read  ;  in  the  shelves  which  contain  a  world 
of  beautiful  things,  and  so  valuable  that  man,  as  Horace 
says,  should  spend  sleepless  nights  in  order  to  acquire 
them,  should  endure  cold  and  heat,  fatigue  and  sacri- 
fice. For  humanity,  we  are  told,  lives  in  those  volumes 
to  which  the  teacher  must  somehow  link  himself  if  he 
intends  to  advance  properly,  to  live  the  life  which  our 
forefathers  have  generously  endowed  for  us,  and  to 
protect  our  spiritual  inheritance  from  dispersion.  In 
this  atmosphere  he  must  live;  he  must  plunge  in  that 
spiritual  sea  which  rolls  limitless  across  the  centuries. 
The  pupil  looks  out  upon  this  ocean  which  allures 
every  man  who  is  born  to  the  life  of  culture.  At  first 
he  clings  to  the  shore,  dreads  the  water,  and  asks  to  be 
helped  until  he  has  at  least  become  familiar  with  the 
element.  Who  will  encourage  the  beginner  to  leave 
the  dry  land  and  plunge  into  the  deep  where  he  would 
meet  sure  destruction?  He  must  first  be  trained  in 
some  sheltered  cove,  where  protected  from  the  violence 
of  the  tumultuous  surf,  from  the  might  of  the  indi- 
visible mass  of  the  ocean,  he  may  gradually  learn 
the  ways  of  the  deep. 


8o  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

The  student  must  accordingly  begin  with  a  definite 
book;  he  must  be  saved  from  the  haunting  power  of 
the  library,  which  draws  the  youthful  mind  towards 
every  volume,  towards  every  subject.  In  the  multi- 
tude of  books,  not  all  of  them  read,  not  all  of  them 
readable,  thought  founders,  sees  nothing,  thinks  noth- 
ing, is  unable  to  rest  in  any  of  the  things  which  he 
imagines  exist  in  the  vast  library  shelves.  He  must 
choose.  Let  him  select,  say,  Dante.  He  reads  the 
Divine  Comedy,  the  poem  written  by  that  great  Italian 
who  has  been  dead  these  six  centuries  and  now  rests 
at  Ravenna,  no  longer  mindful  of  his  Francesca,  of  his 
magnanimous  Farinata,  of  his  kindly  master  Brunetto, 
or  of  Beatrice.  Dante  created  his  miraculous  world,  he 
breathed  life  into  his  characters,  wrote  the  last  Une  of 
his  last  canto,  smiled  in  rapture  at  the  divine  beauty 
of  his  creation,  now  complete  and  perfect,  and  died. 
His  manuscript  was  copied  thousands  of  times;  and 
after  the  discovery  of  printing,  millions  of  copies  were 
made.  In  one  of  these  we  now  are  able  to  find  it,  this 
divine  poem,  just  as  it  was  written, — for  we  want  it 
exactly  as  it  flowed  from  his  pen  without  the  change 
of  a  letter,  without  the  omission  of  a  comma.  And  this 
volume  is  an  example  of  what  exists  in  a  library, — of 
the  culture  that  teachers  strive  to  find  there,  and  thence 
communicate  to  their  pupils! — something  that  be- 
longs to  the  world,  something  which  is  a  part  of  real- 
ity, which  men  therefore  can  grasp,  if  they  want  to, 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISxM  81 

just  as  they  can  get  to  know  the  stars  and  the  plants, 
and  all  things  of  nature.  The  Divine  Comedy  can  be 
realistically  conceived  in  respect  to  us  who  open  the 
volume  and  prepare  to  read  it,  for  the  reason  that  it 
already  exists  and  arouses  our  desire.  If  we  had  left  it 
on  the  shelf  where  it  was  resting,  it  would  have  had 
exactly  the  same  existence.  What  we  find  in  the  vol- 
ume, as  we  read  of  that  land  of  the  dead  which  is  much 
more  living  than  all  the  living  beings  who  surround  us 
in  our  daily  life,  would  all  of  it  have  been  in  that 
book,  would  have  continued  to  be  there,  even  if  we  had 
never  opened  it. 

But  is  it  really  so?  If  we  reflect  a  while  we  shall  i^' 
see  that  this  is  not  the  case.  The  book  contains  exactly 
what  we  find  there,  what  we  are  capable  of  finding 
there,  nothing  more,  nothing  less.  Different  persons 
discover  in  it  different  things,  but  it  is  nevertheless  ob- 
vious that  for  each  individual  the  book  contains  only 
what  he  finds  in  it;  and  in  order  to  be  able  to  say  that 
the  book  contains  more  than  what  a  given  reader  dis- 
covers in  it,  it  is  necessary  that  some  other  person 
should  find  that  something  more  ;  and  that  the  text  con- 
tains this  additional  beauty  is  only  true  for  him  who 
discovered  it  and  for  those  who  seek  it  after  him. 

Dante  waited  for  centuries  for  De  Sanctis  ^  to  appear 
and  to  disclose  the  meaning  of  Francesca's  words. 

'  Francesco  de  Sanctis,  a  great  Italian  critic,  whose  "History  of 
Italian  Literature"  is  still  unfortunately  inaccessible  in  English. 


82  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

Therefore  it  has  been  said  that  to  understand  Dante  is 
a  sign  of  greatness.  Abstractly  considered,  of  course, 
the  poet  is  what  he  is,  but  only  in  the  abstract.  In 
the  concrete,  Dante  is  the  author  whom  we  admire 
and  appreciate  proportionately  to  our  power.  For  as 
we  read  the  poem  in  accordance  with  our  training,  and 
the  development  of  our  personality,  Dante  is  grafted 
on  a  trunk  which  did  not  exist  before  us,  which,  on  the 
contrary,  is  our  very  life;  and  before  this  life  is  real- 
ised, evidently  none  of  those  things  can  be  found  there 
which  actually  come  into  being  in  the  process  of  its 
realisation.  So  that  if  we  had  not  read  the  book,  far 
from  its  being  true  that  everything  we  found  in  it  would 
still  continue  to  be  there,  nothing  would  remain  of 
what  we  find  in  it^  absolutely  nothing. 

We  have  said  nothing  of  "what  we  find."  But  if  we 
consider  the  matter  we  shall  see  that  what  we  find  is 
everything;  everything  for  me;  everything  for  every- 
body. Only  that  can  come  out  of  a  book  which  the 
reader  with  his  soul  and  with  his  labours  is  capable  of 
getting  out  of  it;  and  in  consequence  of  these  labours 
and  in  virtue  of  his  soul  he  is  able  to  say  that  a  certain 
book  has  a  content.  In  fact,  to  return  to  our  example, 
the  Divine  Comedy  which  we  know,  the  only  one  which 
we  can  know,  the  only  one  which  exists,  is  the  one 
which  lives  in  our  souls,  and  which  is  a  function  of 
the  criticism  that  interprets  it,  understands  it,  and 
appreciates  it.    That  Divine  Comedy  therefore  did  not 


REALISM  AND  IDEALISM  83 

close  the  circle  of  its  life  on  the  day  when  Dante  wrote 
the  last  line  of  the  last  canto;  it  continued  to  live,  still 
continues  to  exist  in  the  history,  in  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
Its  life  never  draws  to  a  close.  The  poem  is  never 
finished. 

This  is  true  of  the  poem  of  Dante;  it  is  true  of  every- 
thing which  we  conceive  of  as  inherited  from  our  great 
predecessors,  from  those  who  built  up  the  patrimony  of 
human  culture.  Culture  then  is  not  before  us,  a  treas- 
ure ready  to  be  excavated  from  the  depths  of  the  earth, 
awaiting  to  be  revealed  to  us.  Culture  is  what  we  our- 
selves are  making;  it  is  the  life  of  our  spirit. 

Abstract  culture,  on  the  contrary,  is  merely  as  real- 
istically conceived.  It  slumbers  in  the  libraries,  in  the 
sepulchres  of  those  who  lived,  who  passed  away  and 
created  it  once  for  all.  It  belongs  to  the  past,  to  the 
things  that  have  died.  But  the  past,  if  we  really  mean 
to  grasp  it,  if  we  want  to  see  it  close  by  as  something 
that  is  and  not  merely  as  an  abstraction,  the  past  itself, 
becoming  the  present,  made  into  that  actuality  which 
we  call  living  memory,  is  history, — history  constructed 
by  us,  meditated  by  us,  re-created  by  us,  in  accordance 
with  our  abilities; — and  with  our  powers  of  evocation 
we  awaken  the  past  from  its  slumber  and  breathe  into 
it  the  life  of  the  spiritual  interests,  of  the  ideas,  of  the 
sentiments  that  are,  after  all,  the  living  substance 
in  which  the  past  really  survives,  in  which  it  is  real. 
In  the  same  way  the  only  culture  that  can  be  be- 


84  REALISM  AND  IDEALISM 

stowed  upon  the  spirit,  the  only  one  that  admits 
of  being  concretely  taught  and  learned,  the  only  one 
that  can  be  sought,  because  it  is  the  only  one  that  really 
exists,  is  idealistic  culture.  It  is  not  in  books,  nor  in 
the  brains  of  others.  It  exists  in  our  own  souls  as  it 
is  gradually  being  formed  there.  It  cannot  therefore 
be  an  antecedent  to  the  activity  of  the  spirit,  since  it 
consists  in  this  very  activity. 

This  must  be  the  faith  of  all  those  who  cannot  bring 
themselves  to  believe  that  they  are  strangers  in  this 
world,  and  that  they  have  come  here  to  exercise  a  func- 
tion which  is  not  their  own.  For  the  world  in  general, 
and  the  sphere  of  culture  in  particular,  is  not  completed 
when  we  arrive  upon  the  scene.  This  is  why  human 
life  has  a  value,  why  education  is  a  mission. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

The  idealistic  conception  of  culture  enables  us  to  get 
an  initial  understanding  of  the  spirituality  of  the 
school.  This  spirituality  is  surely  felt  by  all  those  who 
live  within  the  class-room;  but  it  should  be  understood 
in  the  most  rigorous  and  absolute  manner  by  those  who 
wish  to  have  a  deeper  consciousness  of  the  extreme  deli- 
cacy of  the  tasks  performed  and  the  words  uttered  by 
those  who  enter  it  with  the  sincere  heart  and  the  pure 
soul  of  the  teacher. 

The  school  is  obviously  not  the  hall  which  contains 
the  teacher  and  the  pupils.  These  may  have  a  hall, 
may  even  have  the  teacher,  without  yet  possessing  the 
school,  which  consists  in  the  communication  of  culture. 
This  culture,  we  have  seen,  is  not  really  pre-existent 
to  the  act  which  communicates  it;  it  is  not  to  be  found 
in  books,  not  to  be  looked  for  in  an  ideal  transcendent 
world,  not  to  be  demanded  of  the  teacher.  It  is  only 
in  the  spirit  of  the  person  who  is  in  the  act  of  learning. 
It  is  there  in  the  manner  in  which  it  is  possible  for  it 
to  be  there,  not  comparable  to  any  presumed  form  of 
pre-existing  culture.  The  school  gains  its  existence 
entirely  in  the  soul  of  the  learner. 

85 


86         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

Knowledge  is  not  to  be  found  beyond  the  bounds  of 
the  human  spirit.  I  insist  on  this  conception  because 
I  am  well  aware  that  the  minds  of  many  rebel  against 
this  conclusion,  no  matter  how  irrefutable  its  grounds 
may  be.  For  they  ask:  what  then  is  the  learning  which 
we  ascribe  to  the  master  minds  of  humanity,  now  in- 
deed dead  but  still  active  in  their  works?  They  also 
ask  how  we  are  able  to  think  and  account  for  that 
learning  which  we  feel  we  are  not  originating,  which 
we  know  we  are  re-acquiring  for  ourselves  after  it  has 
many  times  been  in  the  domain  of  others. 

Can  we  really  consider  as  non-existent  what  we  as 
yet  do  not  know,  may  perhaps  never  know,  but  which 
is  none  the  less  capable  of  being  known?  When  we 
are  filled  with  reverence  for  the  glory  of  men  whose 
learning  surpasses  our  powers,  are  we  the  victims  of 
an  illusion?  Are  we  prevailed  upon  by  ignorance  and 
lack  of  reflection?  And  how  then  can  we  justify  the 
cult  which  every  civilised  man  consecrates  to  the 
mighty  spirits — philosophers^  poets,  artists,  and  heroes 
— who  added  so  much  to  the  moral  fund  of  humanity? 
Was  there  not  a  Dante  six  centuries  back,  who  com- 
posed a  lofty  poem,  which  was  admired  by  everybody, 
at  a  time  when  we,  who  now  read  it  and  bring  it  to  life 
in  our  souls,  were  still  so  far  removed  from  the  entrance 
of  this  life? 

The  answer  to  all  these  questions  is  very  simple,  so 
simple  that  we  must  be  careful  lest  we  miss  its  signifi- 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         87 

canee.  All  this  lore  of  the  past  which  we  strive  to  pre- 
serve surely  does  exist;  it  does  contain  all  the  names 
which  are  sacred  to  the  memory  of  humankind.  The 
Divine  Comedy  has  been  written  and  no  longer  awaits 
its  Dante.  But  this  lore  of  the  past,  as  we  for  brevity's 
sake  call  it,  is  nothing  else  than  what  we  think  as  such. 
History,  as  it  unfolds  itself  from  century  to  cen- 
tury, is  never  compressed  within  a  past  which  because 
of  its  completeness  might  be  made  to  exist  beyond  the 
present  and  in  opposition  to  it;  but  it  exists  in  a  past 
which  is  in,  the  present  as  a  plant  that  grows  or  an 
animal  that  lives,  never  adding  anything  new  to  the 
old,  always  transforming  the  old  into  the  new;  at  no 
time,  therefore,  having  anything  but  what  is  new,  never 
being  anything  else  but  the  new.  In  history,  thus  com- 
prehended, we  to-day  are  but  one  person  with  the  men 
who  thought  before  us,  with  the  poets,  the  philosophers, 
the  spiritual  creators  of  the  past.  With  them  we  are 
a  person  that  grows  and  develops,  ever  acquiring,  never 
losing;  a  single  being  that  apprehends  and  recalls  and 
constantly  makes  all  his  past  bear  fruit  in  the  present. 
Our  childhood  has  not  completely  passed  away  into 
nothing:  it  keeps  returning  to  the  ever-busy  phantasy 
that  tenderly  fondles  it,  cherishes  it,  idealises  it  into 
poetry.  If  we  consider  this  childhood  as  something 
that  once  was,  that  existed  in  utter  ignorance  of  this 
poetry  that  was  yet  to  be  written,  that  could  not  then 
be  written,  surely  this  infancy  is  quite  dead;  we  should 


88         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

rather  say  that  it  never  existed.    But  it  does  live  as 
the  childhood  which  is  a  recollection,  which  arouses 
feelings,  and  such  feelings  as  are  at  a  given  moment 
the  actual  sentiment  of  the  adult.    Once  in  the  years 
long  gone  by  a  kindly  word  reached  the  depths  of  my 
soul.    We  all  have  heard  in  the  years  long  gone  by  some 
such  kindly  words  that  in  the  mystery  of  our  childish 
mind  appeared  as  a  revelation.    Such  words  as  fall  from 
the  lips  of  a  mother  and  inspired  by  her  tender  affection 
have  the  secret  power  of  appeasing  us  in  a  moment  of 
rage,  and  of  making  us  feel  the  gentle  sweetness  of 
that  goodness  which  is  made  of  love.    We  may  since 
have  forgotten  that  word,  and  the  circumstances  in 
which  it  was  uttered:  but  it  is  none  the  less  true  that 
on  that  day  our  soul  was  modified  and  became  endowed 
almost  with  a  sixth  sense.    This  sense  has  enabled  us 
subsequently  to  perceive  so  many  things  that  are  beau- 
tiful in  life,  and  it  in  turn  grew  stronger  because  of 
frequent  use  and  increasing  exercise,  until  it  finally 
became  the  most  potent  organ  of  our  moral  personality. 
Here  too  our  development  has  been  a  constant  acquir- 
ing with  no  losing:  a  preserving  of  the  past  by  which  it 
was  converted  into  the  present,  and  therefore  annulled 
as  past  pure  and  simple. 

Such  is  the  moral  development  of  man,  who  believes 
himself  an  individual,  but  is  in  truth  humanity  consid- 
ered momentarily  in  one  of  its  fragn:>ents.  Such  is  his- 
tory: the  unfolding  of  the  spirit  in  its  universality.    It 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         89 

is  not  therefore  difficult  to  determine  what  is  the  past 
culture  in  which  we  desire  to  graft  our  present  one.  It 
is  our  own  actual  culture  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  the  patri- 
mony, not  the  spiritual  life  of  the  isolated  individual,  of 
a  particular  being;  but  is  instead  the  life  of  the  spirit 
in  its  universality,  the  development  of  the  human  per- 
sonality taken  in  its  effective,  historical  concreteness. 

The  past  with  its  entire  content  is  a  projection  of  our 
actual  consciousness,  i.  e.,  of  the  present.  But  we  must 
not  give  this  proposition  a  sceptical  sense.  As  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  the  present  neither  in  the  particu- 
lar individual  nor  in  the  universal  history  of  the  spirit, 
is  sundered  from  the  past  by  that  abyss  which  is  ordi- 
narily seen  from  a  materialistic  point  of  view.  The 
past  is  one  and  the  same  thing  with  the  present.  The 
past  is  the  present  in  its  inmost  substance;  and  the 
present  is  the  past  that  has  matured.  The  grain  of 
wheat  which  was  buried  in  the  furrow  is  now  no  longer 
to  be  found  under  the  glebe.  It  lives,  multiplied  in  the 
ear  of  wheat.  The  seed  as  such  was  decomposed  and 
destroyed  in  the  soil;  it  is  there  no  more,  it  sprung 
thence  as  a  blade  of  grass,  it  grew,  was  transformed, 
still  is,  still  lasts,  and  will  continue  to  endure  in  other 
forms.  Where  is  it  now?  Why,  in  whatever  form  it 
may  now  have  assumed.  It  is  the  past  in  the  present, 
as  the  present. 

So  then,  what  is  Dante  the  poet  who  towers  over 
the  centuries,  the  object  of  our  admiration,  the  master 


90         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

of  all  who  speak  and  use  the  Italian  language?  He  is 
the  lordly  poet  of  the  fourteenth  century,  not  because 
he  then  lived  his  own  individual  life,  but  because  he 
survives  to-day  in  us  who  think  him,  who  appreciate 
him  even  when  we  are  not  fully  acquainted  with  him. 
In  this  sense  he  lives  in  us,  as  the  seed  does  in  the  ear 
of  corn. 

I  have  just  hinted  at  the  possibility  of  appreciating 
something  without  fully  understanding  it.  I  wanted  to 
make  clear  how  impossible  it  is  to  separate,  with  a  clean 
cut,  knowledge  from  ignorance.  It  is  far  from  true  that 
before  taking  up  a  certain  science  we  know  absolutely 
nothing  about  it, — that  the  boy  who  goes  to  school  for 
the  first  time  is  completely  devoid  of  all  knowledge,  or 
that  he  who  is  in  quest  of  a  book  which  he  has  never 
read  can  in  no  way  whatever  speak  about  it. 

For  fair  renown  begets  love  for  the  unseen  person, 
as  the  poet  reminds  us  and  as  experience  often  teaches. 
Frequently  we  know  of  the  existence  and  the  beauty 
of  a  woman  whom  we  have  never  seen,  but  who  is  not 
therefore  completely  unknown  to  us.  So  also  many 
of  us  desired  to  go  to  school  long  before  we  had 
seen  the  inside  of  a  classroom.  What  is  dearer  than 
the  joy  foretasted  at  the  first  imaginings  of  school? 
We  look  forward  to  that  new  life  upon  which 
we  are  about  to  enter  in  the  company  of  our  bigger 
brothers  and  of  our  older  playmates.  They  have  told 
us  so  many  things  about  it.    From  their  accounts  and 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         91 

from  the  fond  memories  of  our  parents  we  already 
know  the  school  before  we  approach  it,  and  its  pleasing 
aspects  invite  us  into  the  classroom. 

For  the  same  reason  we  search  for  books  we  have 
never  seen,  and  we  are  drawn  towards  new  studies  and 
pursuits.  There  is  no  leaping  from  ignorance  to  knowl- 
edge, as  from  pitch  darkness  to  noon-tide  brilliancy. 
The  transition  is  imperceptible,  as  when  the  dim  morn- 
ing twilight  merges  into  the  first  glimmerings  of  dawn, 
which  in  turn  fade  away  under  the  dazzling  flashes  of 
sunrise.  And  even  from  the  midst  of  darkness  we 
yearn  for  a  world  which  though  unseen  is  somehow 
present  to  our  consciousness,  already  illumined  by  our 
thought,  warmed  by  our  sentiments.  Or,  in  other 
words,  the  culture  which  we  do  not  yet  possess,  and 
which  we  expect  to  get  at  school,  is  already  implanted 
in  our  mind,  where  it  will  sprout  and  grow  and  bear 
fruit,  fused  and  confused  with  the  life  of  our  spirit. 

Having  now  reached  this  point,  can  we  define  cul- 
ture? I  am  inclined  for  a  moment  to  assume  the  role 
of  Don  Ferrante  in  Manzoni's  novel.^  By  pedantic 
ratiocinations  he  proved  that  the  plague  could  not  be 
a  contagious  disease:  "for,"  he  said,  "in  nature  every- 
thing is  either  a  substance  or  an  accident."  Contagion, 
he  then  went  on  to  prove,  could  neither  be  the  one  nor 
the  other;  therefore  the  plague  was  but  an  influx  of  the 
stars,  and  there  could  be  no  use  in  taking  precautions  ; 

'  /  Promessi  Sposi  ("The  Betrothed"), 


92         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

and  having  proved  this,  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  epidemic, 
and  died  cursing  the  stars  like  an  operatic  hero.  Let 
us  follow  for  a  moment  in  the  footsteps  of  this  pedant, 
whose  method,  ridiculous  as  it  may  seem,  has  had 
nevertheless  a  glorious  history,  and  one  which  Man- 
zoni himself  admired. 

I  say:  We  can  think  only  and  we  do  think  only  two 
kinds  of  reality, — person  or  thing.  Every  one  of  us 
is  naturally  drawn  to  this  distinction;  and  when  we 
have  formulated  it,  we  feel  more  or  less  vaguely,  more 
or  less  clearly,  that  every  possibility  is  comprised  within 
these  two  terms,  that  outside  of  them  it  is  impossible  to 
think  any  reality  whatsoever.  The  reason  is  this:  if 
we  think,  if  we  act,  if  we  live,  we  inevitably  place  our- 
selves in  a  situation  such  that  we  on  one  side  are  as 
centre,  as  beginning,  or  as  subject  of  our  activity;  and 
on  the  other  side  are  the  objects  toward  which  our  ac- 
tivity is  directed  and  by  which  it  is  terminated.  We 
therefore  as  subject  of  the  entire  surrounding  world; 
and  tills  world  as  the  end  of  our  thoughts  and  of  our 
scientific  inquiries,  end  of  our  desires  and  of  our  prac- 
tical activity;  the  world  which  is  represented  in  our 
consciousness,  and  which  we  strive  to  dominate  by  our 
labours,  and  our  reason.  Can  there  be  anything  else 
beside  us  and  what  we  think? 

The  world  which  we  think  and  which  we  oppose  to 
ourselves  seems  at  first  to  contain  different  kinds  of 
objects.    There  seem  to  be  both  persons  and  things; 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         93 

simple  objects  of  cognition  which  we  ordinarily  call 
things  which  can  never  become  subjects;  and  persons 
who  at  first  are  represented  to  us  as  objects  of  our 
knowing,  of  our  love,  and  of  our  hatred,  as  ends  of  our 
activity;  but  who  under  a  closer  scrutiny  are  trans- 
formed before  our  eyes  into  knowing  and  acting  sub- 
jects, who,  in  other  words,  become  just  exactly  what  we 
are.  But  when  we  really  get  to  know  these  beings  that 
surround  us  as  subjects  on  an  equal  basis,  then  we 
cease  to  consider  them  as  objects  of  our  cognition,  and 
as  solely  endowed  with  that  material  objectivity  which 
at  first  put  them  in  the  same  category  with  the  inani- 
mate things,  with  plants  and  animals.  We  then  find 
them  close  to  us,  very  close  :  fused  with  our  own  spirit- 
ual substance.  We  feel  them  to  be  our  fellow  men,  our 
kinsmen,  with  whom  we  constitute  that  person  of  whose 
existence  I  am  aware  every  time  I  say  We:  the  person 
we  must  take  into  account  whenever  we  wish  to  affirm 
our  personality  in  a  concrete  manner,  the  only  person, 
the  one  subject,  the  true  subject  of  human  knowledge 
and  of  human  activity.  The  subject  which  knows  and 
acts  as  a  universal  in  the  interests  of  all  men,  or  rather 
in  behalf  of  the  one  man  in  whom  all  single  individuals 
are  united  and  with  whom  they  are  all  identified. 

Then  if  we  give  a  rigorous  and  exact  meaning  to  the 
expressions,  "We  and  what  is  before  us,"  "We  and  the 
objects,"  "We  and  the  World,"  we  have  a  correct 
classification  of  all  thinkable  reality  differentiated  into 


94         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

persons  and  things,  but  with  the  understanding  that  all 
persons  are  in  reality  one  Person. 

One  person,  and  things  innumerable!  As  we  look 
about  us,  we  find  the  horizon  peopled  with  thousands 
and  millions  and  infinite  quantities  of  objects,  which 
may  one  by  one  attract  our  attention,  and  may  be 
gathered  up  in  the  vast,  unbounded  picture  sur- 
veyed by  the  eye  as  it  moves  on  from  thing  to  thing, 
incessantly,  without  ever  reaching  the  last.  The 
world  which  we  first  discover  is  the  world  of  matter, 
of  things  which  strike  our  senses.  This  world 
rushes  impetuously  into  our  mind  at  the  beginning 
of  our  natural  experience.  And  these  material 
objects  are  many  not  only  de  facto  but  also  de  jure. 
They  must  be,  they  cannot  but  be  many  if  we  are  to 
consider  them  as  material  things.  It  is  their  peculiar 
nature,  it  is  their  very  essence  to  be  an  indefinite  multi- 
tude. 

A  material  thing  means  a  thing  occupying  space. 
And  space  is  made  up  of  elements,  each  one  of  which 
excludes  all  the  others  and  is  therefore  conceived  inde- 
pendently of  the  others,  must  so  be  conceived.  For 
it  is  the  very  nature  of  space  to  be  divisible.  When 
it  is  narrowed  down  to  a  point  and  cannot  be  further 
subdivided,  then  it  ceases  to  be  space.  Its  divisibility 
signifies  that  space  is  nothing  more  than  the  sum  of  its 
parts;  that  it  contains  nothing  in  addition  to  these 
parts;  that  it  therefore  resolves  itself  into  them  without 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         95 

at  all  losing  its  being  and  without  any  of  the  parts 
being  deprived  of  anything  which  was  theirs  in  the 
whole.  In  fact,  if  anything  were  lost  of  the  entire 
whole,  this  loss  could  not  but  be  felt  in  each  single 
part.  A  book,  considered  as  a  material  thing,  is  com- 
posed of  a  certain  number  of  printed  leaves  stitched 
together;  and  if  the  leaves  fall  apart,  they  may  be 
brought  together  again  so  that  they  will  compose  the 
same  book  as  before.  An  iron  rod  weighs  the  same 
before  and  after  it  has  been  broken  up  into  parts. 

Things  cease  to  be  exclusively  and  solely  material 
when,  though  they  may  be  divisible  in  a  certain  respect, 
they  are  nevertheless  indivisible  in  another  respect. 
Plants,  animals,  all  living  organisms,  considered  simply 
as  objects  occupying  space  and  as  therefore  having 
certain  dimensions,  admit  surely  of  being  separated  into 
parts.  Trees  are  cut  into  logs,  sawed  into  boards; 
animals  are  slaughtered  and  quartered.  But  considered 
from  the  point  of  view  of  its  peculiar  quality,  of  the 
essential  property  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  other 
bodies,  an  organism  is  not  divisible.  If  we  do  divide 
it,  each  component  part  ceases  to  be  what  it  previously 
was  when  conjoined  with  the  others.  Such  a  part  can- 
not be  preserved;  it  withers,  it  decays,  and  is  dispersed, 
so  that  the  whole  can  never  be  reconstituted.  The  vari- 
ous parts  of  an  organism,  considered  as  such,  are  in- 
separable, because  each  of  them  is  and  maintains  itself 
on  the  strength  of  its  relations  to  the  others,  forming 


>y 


96        THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

with  them  a  true  and  essential  unity.  If  we  however 
try  to  find  out  what  this  unity  is  by  which  all  the  limbs 
are  indissolubly  held  together,  we  shall  discover  nothing 
which  can  be  observed  and  represented  spatially,  noth- 
ing endowed  with  dimensions,  however  small,  after  the 
manner  of  the  several  limbs  which  this  unity  fuses 
within  itself  and  vivifies. 

If  unity  which  is  the  life-giving  principle  of  every 
organism  could  be  spatially  represented,  or  in  other 
words,  if  it  were  something  material,  it  would  be  one 
of  those  very  limbs  that  have  to  be  unified,  and  could 
not  then  be  the  unifying  principle  itself.  Hence  the 
vanity  of  the  efforts  on  the  part  of  materialistic  physi- 
ologists who  obstinately  strive  to  explain  Ufe  by  ob- 
serving the  parts  which  compose  the  organic  mass,  by 
studying  the  concurrence  of  their  processes,  their  chem- 
ical relationships,  and  their  mechanism.  A  material 
being,  organically  constituted,  is  something  more  than 
a  material  thing  pure  and  simple:  it  announces  already 
a  higher  principle;  it  presages  the  spirit. 

But  the  things  that  we  all  agree  to  regard  as  spiritual 
defy  absolutely  every  attempt  at  division.  A  poem 
may  be  considered  in  a  certain  way  as  material,  and 
may  accordingly  be  divided  into  various  parts, — 
stanzas,  lines,  words.  But  it  is  clear  that  such 
a  separation  cannot  have  the  value  which  we  assign  to 
the  divisions  of  things  material.  For  in  their  case  every 
part  can  stand  by  itself,  and  is  in  no  way  deprived  of 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         97 

its  characteristic  being;  whereas  every  part  of  a  poem, 
stanza,  verse,  word,  calls  out  and  responds  to  every 
other  part;  and  if  isolated  from  them,  loses  the  mean- 
ing which  it  had  in  the  context;  or  rather  it  loses  every 
meaning,  and  consequently  perishes.  It  is  true  that  by 
conjectures  we  interpret  even  very  small  fragments  of 
ancient  poems.  But  we  do  so  only  in  so  far  as  we 
claim  the  possibility  of  restoring  approximately  the 
entire  poem  in  which  the  given  fragment  may  live,  by 
which  it  may  be  restored  to  life.  Likewise  all  the  words 
lined  up  in  dictionaries  are  as  so  many  bleeding  limbs 
of  living  discourses,  to  which  they  must  somehow  or 
other  be  ideally  reconnected,  if  we  are  to  understand 
what  they  really  were  and  what  functions  they  had. 
Multiplicity  of  parts  in  things  of  the  spirit  is  only  ap- 
parent: it  must  be  reduced  to  indivisible  unity,  from 
which  every  element  of  the  multiplicity  derives  its 
origin,  its  substance,  and  its  life,  so  that  we  may  give 
to  it  a  real  meaning  and  a  foundation. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  unity  possessed  by  the  things 
that  are  assumed  to  be  spiritual.  We  have  already  con- 
sidered the  unity  whereby,  for  example,  the  words  of 
a  poem  cannot  be  separated  from  the  poem  itself,  in 
which  each  of  them  acquires  a  particular  accent,  a  par- 
ticular expression,  and  therefore  a  particular  individ- 
uality. We  shall  now  consider  another  unity.  He  who 
really  perceives  a  poem  is  not  confronted  by  an  ob- 
servable thing,  compact  if  you  will,  unseverable  and 


98         THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

united,  but  none  the  less  independent  of  human  per- 
sonality. Poetry  is  only  understood  when  in  the  flow- 
ing unity  of  its  verses  and  in  the  continuous  rhythm 
of  its  words  we  grasp  a  sentiment  in  its  development, 
a  soul's  throb  in  a  moment  of  its  life,  a  man,  a  person- 
ality. The  poetry  of  Dante  is  very  different  from  that 
of  Petrarch,  because  each  is  the  expression  of  a  power- 
fully distinct  personality.  Any  composition  of  these 
poets  is  understood  and  enjoyed  only  when  we  feel  in 
it  the  personal  accent  which  distinguishes  one  poetical 
personality  from  the  other.  A  poet  without  individ- 
uality has  no  significance  whatsoever,  and  therefore 
no  existence  as  a  poet.  But  the  real  artist  leaves  his 
imprint  more  or  less  markedly  in  all  his  productions, 
so  that  in  every  given  instance,  over  and  beyond  the 
variety  of  the  subject  matter,  we  feel  the  living  soul 
of  the  poet.  A  poem  then  is  the  poet;  it  is  a  person 
and  not  a  thing.  And  the  same  can  be  said,  as  we  can 
easily  see,  of  all  things  that  are  commonly  called 
spiritual. 

But  in  addition  to  things  material,  it  seems  that  there 
are  immaterial  ones  which  do  not  pertain  as  one's  own 
to  any  particular  person.  The  ideas  of  which  we  had 
occasion  to  speak  before, — immaterial  entities,  not  per- 
ceptible by  the  senses,  but  thinkable  by  the  intellect, 
and  which  severally  correspond  to  all  sorts  or  species 
of  the  various  material  things, — were  once  conceived 
as  things  by  philosophers,  and  they  are  still  so  con- 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE         99 

ceived  to-day  by  the  majority  of  men.  It  is  not  requi- 
site that  one  actually  think  them;  it  is  sufficient  that 
they  be  in  themselves  thinkable.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  may  or  may  not  be  thought,  no  differently  there- 
fore from  any  of  the  material  objects  which  are  not 
created  by  our  senses,  but  must  already  exist  in  order 
that  our  senses  may  perceive  them.  These  ideas  are 
many,  in  a  manner  corresponding  to  the  material  ob- 
jects; and  they  are  all  different.  They  mirror,  so  to 
speak,  the  multiplicity  of  material  things  in  whose  sem- 
blance and  likeness  they  were  devised.  There  are 
horses  in  nature,  and  there  is  the  idea  of  the  horse  by 
which  we  are  able  to  recognise  all  the  animals  that  be- 
long to  that  species.  There  are  dogs,  and  there  is  the 
dog  which  we  rediscover  in  every  one  of  them.  And 
there  are  flowers  and  the  flower;  and  pinks,  roses,  and 
lilies,  as  well  as  the  pink,  the  rose,  and  the  lily;  and 
likewise  iron,  copper,  silver,  gold,  lime,  water,  and  so 
on,  to  infinity.  It  is  impossible  to  set  a  limit  to  ideas, 
because  it  is  not  possible  ever  to  stop  dividing,  distin- 
guishing, subdividing  that  nature  which  unfolds  itself 
throughout  space. 

This  boundless  multitude  of  ideas,  through  which 
our  mind  can  rove,  surely  has  no  spatial  extension.  But 
because  of  the  necessity  of  conceiving  any  multitude  as 
existing  in  some  kind  of  space,  it  was  thought  proper 
to  posit  an  ideal  space  in  addition  to  the  physical  one. 
In  other  words,  metaphorical  dimensions  were  added  to 


loo       THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

dimensions  properly  so  called.  But  whether  spatially 
or  not,  we  strive  to  conceive  ideas  as  many,  each  one 
of  them  existing  by  itself,  and  susceptible  of  being 
thought  independently  of  the  others.  In  reahty  how- 
ever we  never  succeed  in  thinking  them  except  as  bound 
together  and  forming  a  system,  in  such  a  way  that  no 
single  one  of  them  can  be  thought  except  by  thinking 
the  others  with  it.  Take  man  as  an  instance:  each 
one  of  us  has  intuitively  the  idea  of  man,  but  this  idea 
is  not  possessed  like  a  word  of  which  we  may  not  even 
know  the  meaning.  In  thinking  the  idea  we  must  think 
something  which  is  its  content.  If  we  know  what  man 
is,  we  must  be  able  to  attribute  a  content  to  the  idea 
of  man.  We  may  say,  as  the  ancients  did,  that  man 
is  the  laughing  animal,  or  the  speaking  animal,  because 
he  is  the  only  animal  capable  of  expressing  the  emo- 
tions of  his  soul  by  laughter  or  by  the  inflection  of  his 
voice;  because,  in  other  words,  he  is  the  only  animal 
who  is  conscious  of  what  goes  on  within  him.  Or  per- 
haps we  might  say  that  man  is  the  reasoning  animal, 
and  we  think  this  idea  when  we  have  thought  the  idea 
of  animal  and  the  idea  of  reason.  But  can  the  idea  of 
animal  be  thought  by  itself  alone?  It,  as  well  as  the 
idea  of  reason,  must  have  a  content;  that  is,  each  must 
be  connected  with  other  ideas,  without  which  it  would 
be  deprived  of  all  consistency. 

And  so  the  mind  that  begins  to  think  one  single  idea 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE        loi 

is  compelled,  almost  dragged,  to  pass  on  to  another, 
then  to  a  third,  and  so  on  indefinitely.  It  finds  itself  in 
the  condition  of  the  man  who  tried  to  grasp  a  single  link 
of  a  chain,  just  one,  and  found  that  he  could  not  have  it 
except  on  condition  of  taking  the  whole  chain.  So  it 
is  with  ideas.  We  may  not  be  capable  of  encompassing 
all  of  them  in  one  single  thought;  but  whenever  we  try 
to  fix  any  one  of  them  in  our  mind,  it  presents  itself  to 
us  as  a  knot  in  which  many  other  ideas  are  interlaced, 
twisted,  and  entangled.  They  form  an  infinite  chain, 
in  which  it  is  not  possible  to  think  the  first  link  or  the 
last  one,  because  the  beginning  is  welded  to  the  end, 
and  we  turn  and  turn  and  never  reach  the  last.  Is  not 
this  the  nature  of  the  ideas  as  we  see  them,  as  they  con- 
stitute the  field  from  which  we  must  harvest  all  our 
possible  thoughts? 

Ideas  are  not,  therefore,  a  true  multiplicity,  because 
they  are  not  things,  either  material  or  ideal,  and  be- 
cause they  do  not  occupy  any  space  whatsoever. 
Our  imagination  may  present  them  to  us  as  so 
many  lights  of  an  ideal  sky;  but  our  intelligence  warns 
us  that  they  cannot  be  separated  one  from  the  other 
and  placed  side  by  side.  As  I  have  already  said  :  when 
we  think  one,  we  think  them  all.  Or  in  any  event  we 
should,  if  we  had  mastered  all  that  there  is  to  be  known. 
So  that  to  our  thought  ideas  appear  as  constituting  one 
unique  whole,  a  unity,  that  something  which  we  call 


102       THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

science,  truth,  knowledge.  They  are  not  a  multitude, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  in  multiplicity  they  would  be 
unthinkable.  Their  connection  with  and  participation 
in  an  absolute  unity  come  from  the  fact  that  they  are 
the  object  of  thought,  and  are  therefore  submitted  to  its 
activity,  whereby  they  are  ordered,  correlated,  organ- 
ised, unified.  In  order  that  we  may  say  that  one  idea 
contains  another,  or  many  others,  we  must  analyse  this 
first  idea  and  define  it.  This  first  idea  must  be  distin- 
guished from  the  others,  and  they  likewise  among  them- 
selves. It  is  not  therefore  sufficient  to  say  that  there 
are  these  ideas,  motionless,  inert,  lifeless,  as  they  neces- 
sarily would  be  if  they  existed  per  se,  as  objects  of 
mere  possible  contemplation.  There  must  also  be  some 
one  to  analyse  them,  define  them,  and  distinguish  them. 
It  is  not  enough  to  have  the  material  of  thought,  we 
need  thought  also  to  mould  and  fashion  this  material, 
turn  it  effectively  into  thought  stuff,  reduce  it  to  some- 
thing susceptible  of  being  thought.  Ideas  as  things 
would  in  no  way  be  related  among  themselves. 
But  they  do  have  that  relationship  which  is  generated 
by  thought  as  it  thinks  them.  Thought  generates 
this  relationship  not  as  a  fixed  one,  as  would  be  the 
case  if  it  were  inherent  in  the  things  themselves; 
but  as  a  relationship  which  is  being  formed  by  de- 
grees, and  which  is  continuously  changing  and  develop- 
ing. No  ideal,  abiding  science,  existing  only  as 
the    object    of    a    vague    phantasy,    can    therefore 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE        103 

result  from  this  relationship.  It  constitutes  instead  a 
science  which  is  ever  re-formed  and  is  never  formed; 
it  gives  to  the  ideas  an  ever  renewed  aspect:  it  matures 
them,  elaborates  them,  perfects  them,  by  concentrating 
on  each  one  of  them  the  constantly  increasing  light  of 
the  system  into  which  it  closely  binds  them. 

Ideas,  then,  as  we  really  think  them,  are  not  a 
minutely  fractioned  and  scattered  multiplicity.  Nor 
are  they  a  mass  of  concurrent  elements.  They  are 
Thought  as  it  becomes  articulate,  and  gains  distinctness 
by  these  many  Limbs,  by  these  ideas,  which  exist,  all 
of  them,  in  the  process  by  which  they  are  gradually 
formed,  developed,  and  complicated,  and  arrayed  in  an 
order  which  is  constantly  being  renewed  and  which  is 
never  definitely  perfected. 

There  are  not  then  many  ideas;  there  is  one  Idea, 
which  is  Thought.  Only  in  a  metaphorical  sense  can 
we  consider  them  as  things;  and,  properly  speaking, 
they  are  the  human  person  itself  as  actualised  in 
thought,  which  is  busily  occupied  in  the  construction  of 
knowledge.  They  are  an  indivisible  unity,  in  which 
each  idea  is  found  collaborating  with  every  other  one  so 
as  to  answer  the  questions  which  Thought  constantly 
propounds.  They  are  the  human  person,  not  the  per- 
sons; for  we  have  already  concluded  that  only  in  an 
abstract  sense  is  it  possible  to  speak  of  many  persons; 
concretely  there  is  but  one  universal  Person  which 
is  not  multiplicable. 


I04       THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

There  are  not,  then,  going  back  to  our  original  di- 
vision, persons  and  things,  material  and  spiritual.  At 
the  most  there  is  one  person,  Man,  and  there  are  the 
material  things  which  constitute  this  nature,  as  it  oc- 
cupies space,  and  in  which  we  too  believe  we  have  a 
place,  in  as  much  as  we  consider  ourselves  beings  of 
nature.  Nothing  beyond  this  can  be  conceived:  on  one 
side  a  sole  immultiplicable  reality,  on  the  other  a  mani- 
fold reality,  indefinitely  divisible. 

Here  we  might  perhaps  stop  considering  the  special 
interest  that  called  forth  this  inquiry.  For  no  one 
could  possibly  suppose  for  a  moment  that  culture  could 
be  placed  in  the  midst  of  material  things  rather  than 
in  the  spiritual  reality  which  is  a  person.  However, 
since  the  intimate  nature  of  this  spiritual  reality  which 
we  call  culture  is  not  yet  clearly  revealed,  we  must 
continue  our  investigations,  and  give  more  attention  to 
this  division  which  for  a  moment  we  thought  might  be 
final.  I  mean  the  division  of  the  world  into  persons  and 
things:  the  equipoise  of  spirit  and  matter. 

Do  we  really  think  this  matter  as  we  say  we  do,  and 
which  we  believe  we  are  justified  in  opposing  to  the 
spirit,  in  as  much  as  the  spirit  is  unity  or  universality, 
and  matter,  in  its  entirety,  in  every  one  of  its  parts,  in 
ever3rthing,  is  an  indefinite  multiplicity?  Matter  can 
in  truth  be  thought  only  on  condition  that  it  be  possible 
to  think  multiplicity,  that  pure  multiplicity  which  is  the 
characteristic  quality  of  matter. 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE       105 

What  then  is  the  meaning  of  multiplicity?  In  abso- 
lute terms  we  call  multiple  that  which  consists  of  ele- 
ments each  one  of  which  is  quite  independent  of  all  the 
others,  and  absolutely  devoid  of  any  and  every  relation- 
ship with  them.  The  materialist  conceived  the  world 
as  an  aggregate  of  atoms,  separated  one  from  the  other 
and  having  no  peciprocal  relevance  of  any  sort  what- 
soever. In  the  world  of  pure  quantity,  which  is  the 
same  as  absolute  multiplicity,  mathematical  science 
claims  the  knowledge  of  units  indifferent  to  their 
nexus,  and  therefore  susceptible  of  being  united  and 
separated,  of  being  summed  up  and  divided,  without 
any  alteration  taking  place  within  the  individual  unit 
itself.  Numerical  units  are  therefore  pre-eminently 
irrelative. 

But  the  concept  itself  of  the  multiplicity  of  irrelative 
elements  is  an  absurd  one.  In  order  that  we  may  con- 
ceive many  unrelated  elements  we  must,  to  start  with, 
be  able  to  conceive  a  couple  of  such  elements.  Let  us 
take  A  and  B,  absolutely  unrelated,  and  such  that  the 
concept  of  one  will  contain  nothing  of  the  other's,  and 
will  therefore  exclude  it  from  itself.  If  A  did  not  so 
exclude  B,  something  of  B  would  be  found  in  A,  and 
we  could  no  longer  speak  of  the  two  elements  as  irrela- 
tive. Irrelativity  means  reciprocal  exclusion,  a  capac- 
ity by  which  each  term  is  opposed  to  the  other,  and 
prevents  the  other  from  having  anything  in  common 
with  it.    Without  this  reciprocal  action  whereby  each 


^ 


io6       THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

term  turns  to  the  other  and  excludes  it  from  itself, 
establishing  itself  as  a  negation  of  it,  there  would  be 
no  irrelativity.  But  this  action  by  which  each  term  is 
referred  to  the  other  so  as  to  deny  it,  what  is  it  but 
a  relationship?  Every  effort  therefore  tending  to  break 
up  reality  into  parts  completely  repugnant  amongst 
themselves,  mutually  excluding  one  another,  and  there- 
fore reciprocally  indifferent,  results  in  the  very  oppo- 
site of  what  was  intended,  viz.:  the  relative  in  place 
of  the  irrelative,  unity  instead  of  multiplicity. 

Neither  duality  nor  multiplicity  is  conceivable  with- 
out that  unity  whereby  the  two  engender  that  whole  in 
which  the  two  units  are  connected,  even  though  they 
mutually  exclude  one  another:  without  that  unity  which 
fuses  and  unifies  every  multiplicity  determined  in  a 
number,  which  correlates  among  themselves  the  units 
which  constitute  the  number.  We  could  strip  multi- 
plicity of  all  unity  only  by  not  thinking  it.  But  then 
in  the  gloom  of  what  is  not  thought,  multiplicity  truly 
enough  would  not  be  unity,  but  it  would  not  even 
be  multiplicity,  because  it  could  not  be  anything  at 
all.  Or,  if  we  prefer,  it  would  be  absolutely  unthink- 
able. 

Thought  then  establishes  relationships  among  the 
units  of  the  multiple,  and  thus  constitutes  them  as  the 
units  of  the  manifold,  and  as  forming  multiplicity. 
It  adds  and  divides,  composes  and  decomposes, 
and  variously  distributes,  materialising  and  dematerial- 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE       107 

ising,  so  to  speak,  the  reality  which  it  thinks.  For  it 
materialises  the  reahty  when  it  conceives  it  as  mani- 
fold: but  it  can  conceive  it  as  such  only  by  unifying  it, 
and  therefore  by  dematerialising  it  and  reabsorbing  it 
into  its  own  spiritual  substance. 

Matter  is  a  manifold  reality,  without  unity.  What  it 
is  we  already  have  seen:  a  material  reality,  and  as  such 
divisible  into  parts,  placed  in  the  world  in  the  midst  of 
a  congeneric  multitude.  Now,  since  pure  multiplicity 
is  not  conceivable  except  on  condition  that  we  abstract 
from  that  relationship  to  which  the  reciprocal  exclu- 
siveness  of  manifold  elements  is  reduced,  it  is  evident 
that  matter  and  things  are  abstract  entities.  Thought 
stops  to  consider  them,  and  regards  them  as  existent, 
only  because  it  withdraws  the  attention  from  that  part 
of  itself  which  it  contributes  to  the  making  of  the  ob- 
ject represented.  Thought  therefore  prescinds  from 
that  unity  which  material  things  could  not  by  them- 
selves contain,  but  from  which  it  is  impossible  to  pre- 
scind absolutely  unless  we  wish  to  be  reduced  to  an  ab- 
surd conception. 

Objective  things  then,  the  world  of  matter  itself 
which  we  are  wont  to  oppose  in  equipoise  to  the  person, 
are  in  truth  not  separable  from  it.  For  matter  has  its 
foundation  in  thought  by  which  the  personality  is  ac- 
tualised.  Things  are  what  we  in  our  own  thought 
counterpose  to  ourselves  who  think  them.  Outside  of 
our  thought  they  are  absolutely  nothing.     Their  ma- 


io8       THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE 

terial  hardness  itself  has  to  be  lent  to  them  by  us, 
for  it  ultimately  is  to  be  resolved  into  multiplicity,  and 
multiplicity  implies  spiritual  unity. 

This  then  is  the  world:  an  infinity  of  things  all  of 
which  have  however  their  root  in  us.  Not  in  "us"  as 
we  are  represented  ordinarily  in  the  midst  of  things; 
not  in  the  empirical  and  abstract  "us"  which  feeds  the 
vanity  of  the  empty-headed  egoist,  of  him  who  has  not 
the  faintest  notion  of  what  he  really  is,  who  can  there- 
fore think  of  himself  only  as  enclosed  within  the  tight 
husk  of  his  own  flesh  and  of  his  particular  passions. 
No!  they  are  rooted  in  that  true  "us"  by  which  we 
think,  and  agree  in  one  same  thought,  while  thinking  all 
things,  including  ourselves  as  opposed  to  things.  And 
he  who  fails  to  reach  this  profound  source,  this  root 
from  which  all  reality  receives  its  vitalising  sap,  may 
indeed  get  a  blurred  glimpse  of  a  blind,  inert,  material 
mechanism,  but  he  cannot  even  fix  and  determine  this 
mechanism.  He  cannot  upon  further  reflection  stop  at 
the  conviction  that  it  is  in  truth,  as  it  appears  in  sem- 
blance, something  real,  for  it  reveals  itself  to  him  as  so 
absurd  as  to  become  unthinkable.  The  world  then  is 
in  us  ;  it  is  our  world,  and  it  lives  in  the  spirit.  It  lives 
the  very  life  of  that  person  which  we  strive  to  realise, 
sometimes  satisfied  with  our  work,  but  oftener  unsatis- 
fied and  restless.    And  there  is  the  life  of  culture. 

It  is  not  possible  to  conceive  knowledge  otherwise 
than  as  living  knowledge,  and  as  the  extolment  of  our 


THE  SPIRITUALITY  OF  CULTURE       109 

own  personality.  This  is  our  conclusion.  We  shall, 
later  on,  derive  from  it  two  corollaries  that  are  very 
important  for  teachers,  in  as  much  as  they  bear  di- 
rectly on  the  problems  of  education. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

From  the  concept  of  the  spirituality  of  culture,  we  de- 
rive all  the  fundamental  propositions  of  pedagogy.  But 
in  as  much  as  this  conception  of  culture  coincides  with 
that  of  personality,  or  of  the  spirit,  it  is  evident  that  all 
the  fundamental  propositions  of  the  philosophy  of  the 
spirit  are  also  derived  from  it.  In  fact,  we  separate 
pedagogy  from  the  philosophy  of  the  spirit  only  because 
of  didactic  convenience.  To  determine,  then,  the  attri- 
butes of  culture,  by  which  education  becomes  actual, 
we  have  but  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  spirit  and 
endeavour  to  define  its  attributes.  This  way  we  must 
follow  if  we  are  ever  to  acquire  a  thorough  comprehen- 
sion of  the  principles  of  the  several  theories  of  educa- 
tion, principles  which  are  but  the  laws  immanent  to  the 
life  of  education  itself  in  its  effective  development. 

The  assertion  that  "culture  is  the  human  spirit" 
means  nothing  unless  we  first  define  this  spirit  and 
understand  its  attributes.  We  cannot  possess  a  concept 
which  is  not  determined;  and  the  determinations  of  a 
concept  are  the  constituent  attributes  of  the  reality 
which  we  strive  to  conceive,  and  which  is  not  thinkable 
if  deprived  of  any  of  these  attributes.    The  following 

110 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         iii 

example,  appropriate  even  though  trite,  will  make  my 
meaning  clearer.  Physical  bodies  cannot  be  conceived 
without  also  conceiving  gravity.  Gravity  is  then  an 
attribute  of  the  physical  body,  and  as  such  it  determines 
the  concept  of  it.  In  the  same  way,  to  conceive  the 
spirit  is  to  embrace  with  thought  the  concepts  which 
are  absolutely  inseparable  from  the  concept  of  the 
spirit. 

This  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  attributes  of 
culture,  though  it  constantly  progresses  towards  a  sat- 
isfactory solution,  yet  seems  at  times  to  be  losing 
ground  on  account  of  the  ever-increasing  difficulties 
that  beset  its  advance.  It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  human 
thought,  driven  by  the  irresistible  desire  to  know  it- 
self, has  made  some  headway  towards  mastering  the 
concept  of  itself.  Philosophy  has  indeed  progressed, 
and  the  modern  world  can  proudly  point  to  truths  un- 
suspected by  the  thinkers  of  antiquity.  But  the  assidu- 
ous and  prolonged  toil  of  thought  engaged  in  this  task 
has  at  all  moments  disclosed  new  difficulties;  it  has 
ever  been  busy  sketching  new  concepts  which  subse- 
quently prove  immature  and  in  need  of  further  elabora- 
tion, and  has  been  pushing  its  investigations  to  such 
depths  as  to  make  it  difficult  to  follow  its  lead  without 
sometimes  going  astray,  without  frequently  stopping  in 
utter  weariness  at  the  roadside. 

Men  talk  learnedly  nowadays  of  the  human  spirit, 
but  with  a  doctrine  which  is  often  insufficient  or,  as 


112        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

we  say,  not  up  to  date.  They  have  stopped  at  one  of 
those  wayside  concepts  where  tliought  no  doubt  passed 
and  temporarily  halted,  but  from  which  it  moved  on 
towards  a  more  distant  goal.  For  while  this  long  his- 
tory of  the  endeavours  by  which  man  struggles  onward 
towards  the  understanding  of  his  own  nature  is  the  basis 
on  which  modern  philosophy  builds  its  firm  concept  of 
the  spirit,  yet  for  those  who  have  not  attained  the  van- 
tage ground  of  this  modern  philosophy,  this  history  is 
unfortunately  a  very  intricate  maze;  it  is  the  bewil- 
dering 

"selva  selvaggia  ed  aspra  e  forte"  ^ 

from  which  it  is  difficult  ever  to  issue.  And  therefore 
it  is  much  easier,  as  Dante  once  remarked,  to  teach 
those  who  are  completely  ignorant  than  those  who  have 
a  smattering  of  philosophy.  But  to-day  culture  is  so 
intimately  connected  with  philosophical  speculation 
that  the  greater  part  of  educated  men  profess  this  or 
that  system  without  being  aware  of  it.  And  when  such 
men  do  take  up  the  study  of  philosophy  per  se,  they 
no  longer  possess  the  mental  ingenuousness,  the  specu- 
lative candour,  which  would  enable  them  to  grasp  the 
obvious,  evident,  incontrovertible  truth  of  the  most 
profound  philosophical  proposition. 

This  inquiry  then  is  difficult.    It  demands  either  a 
long,  methodic,  laborious  study  of  the  history  of  phi- 

'  "Forest  savage,  rough,  and  stern."— Dante,  Inferno,  i.S. 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         113 

losophy  conducted  with  critical  vigour,  or  that  unyield- 
ing tenacity  of  the  mind  which  is  the  surest  sign  of 
sound  spiritual  character;  that  steadfast  firmness  by 
which  man,  once  in  possession  of  a  clearly  irrefutable, 
truly  fundamental  truth,  rigorously  excludes  from  his 
soul  all  the  allurements  of  prejudice,  all  convictions  for- 
merly entertained,  even  though  extremely  plausible,  if 
they  contradict  his  Truth.  For  he  trusts  that  these 
perplexities,  these  difficulties  which  he  is  not  now  in 
condition  to  explain,  will  be  removed  in  virtue  of  that 
very  thought  to  which  he  has  confidently  committed 
himself. 

This  unflinching  resolve  is  the  courage  of  the  phi- 
losopher, who  has  never  feared  to  brave  common  sense, 
and  single-handed  to  marshal  against  the  multitude  the 
array  of  his  seemingly  absurd  assertions,  which 
however,  in  the  progress  of  their  reciprocal  integrations, 
have  subsequently  contributed  to  redeem  this  very  mul- 
titude from  error, — from  that  error  which  is  intellectual 
misery,  social  wretchedness,  economic,  political,  and 
moral  destitution.  Because  of  this  inflexible  firmness 
the  philosopher  has  never  dreaded  that  boundless  soli- 
tude, that  thin  atmosphere  to  which  he  is  uplifted  by 
thought,  and  where  at  first  he  has  the  sensation  of  faint- 
ing away  into  the  rarefied  air. 

-  We  must  then  muster  up  courage  and  relinquish  all 
the  ideas  which  we  once  accepted,  even  though  they 
still  tempt  us  with  superficial  glitterings  of  truth,  when 


1 


IH    THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

once  they  have  proved  themselves  to  be  in  contradiction 
with  experience.  For  I  too  hold  experience  to  be  the 
touchstone  of  all  our  thoughts,  philosophy  not  excluded. 
But  I  insist  that  we  be  careful  lest  we  confound  the 
mockery  of  the  first  puppet  that  dupes  our  imagination 
with  genuine  experience;  that  in  as  much  as  every  man 
speaks  of  experience  in  exclusive  accordance  with  what- 
ever concept  he  has  been  able  to  form  of  it,  we  too  de- 
termine beforehand  what  our  conception  of  it  is.  Now 
I  say  that  no  concept  of  experience  can  be  validly  en- 
tertained which  does  not  take  into  account  that  truth 
which  presents  itself  to  us  as  truly  fundamental  and 
therefore  to  be  used  as  an  indispensable  basis  for  all 
subsequent  conceptual  constructions. 

Such  fundamental  truth  we  have  previously  attained 
when  we  established  that  "We"  are  not  what  we  seem 
to  be  in  the  dim  empirical  representation  of  our  per- 
sonality, a  thing  among  things.  Our  "Self"  is  the 
deeper  one  by  means  of  which  we  see  all  things  in 
whose  midst  our  other  self  too  is  discernible.  The  real- 
ity of  this,  our  deeper  "self"  which  cannot  be  conceived 
as  a  thing,  without  which  nothing  can  be  conceived,  in 
the  same  way  that  the  trunk,  the  branches,  and  the 
boughs  are  not  possible  without  the  root  from  which 
the  tree  issues,  is  a  truth  which  we  may  never  grasp, 
but  if  we  do,  we  shall  forever  be  compelled  to  see  in  it 
the  source  of  all  other  possible  truths,  including  the 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         115 

concept  of  experience.    For  once  we  have  securely  mas- 
tered it,  we  will  be  convinced  that  it  is  impossible  to 
conceive  whatever  is  considered  and  thought  of  as 
constituting  this  world  otherwise  than  as  this  world 
which  we  see,  which  we  touch,  and  which,  in  short,  we 
look  upon  as  the  contents  of  our  experience:  and  that 
it  is  also  impossible  to  conceive  this  experience  without 
referring  it  to  us  who  have  it  not  as  an  object  of  pos- 
session but  as  an  activity  which  we  exercise.    So  that 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing,  can  be  thought  when  the 
relationship  between  things  and  experience,  and  again 
the  rapport  between  experience  and  ourselves  is  ob- 
tained, without  thinking  the  deep  reality  of  this  our 
"self."    We  may  again  close  our  eyes  to  this  reality 
or  hold  it  in  abeyance,  but  we  can  do  so  only  after 
we  have  effaced  every  notion  of  the  two  relationships 
just    mentioned,    and    when    we    again    have    im- 
mersed ourselves  in  the  mystery  of  things,  in  the  gloom 
of  their  apparent  independent  existence,  of  their  ever 
self-defeating  multiplicity. 

Against  this  reality  of  the  profound  "us"  which  is 
the  genuine  spiritual  reality^  there  are  innumerable  and 
awe-inspiring  difficulties.  They  are  difficulties  that  so 
violently  oppress  our  minds  and  our  hearts  as  to  dismay 
us,  and  almost  force  us  to  give  up  this  concept  of  a 
reality  on  which  all  other  realities  depend,  and  which 
cannot  but  be  one  alone,  and  infinite,  and  really  uni- 


ii6        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

versa!/  Alone,  because  in  it  all  opposites  must  coin- 
cide: the  good  and  the  evil,  what  is  true  and  what  is 
false,  life  and  death,  peace  and  war,  pleasure  and  pain, 
yours  and  mine, — all  things,  in  short,  that  we  have  been 
obliged  to  sunder  and  distinguish  in  order  to  take  our 
bearings  and  meet  the  exigencies  of  life.  Formidable 
difficulties  indeed  !  And  they  are  the  problems  of  phi- 
losophy. It  would  be  childish  and  senseless  to  dispose 
of  them  by  ignoring  that  concept  from  which  they  de- 
rive. It  is  the  philosopher's  task,  it  is  the  strict  duty 
of  human  thought  to  face  the  problems  as  they  rise  out 
of  the  positions  which  it  has  captured  in  its  onward 
march.  For  to  yield  ground,  to  turn  the  back  to  a  truth 
which  has  been  demonstrated  to  be  indispensable,  that 
is  impossible. 

Those  who  wish  to  orient  themselves  in  the  world 
to-day  must,  before  all,  cling  to  this:  that  the  basis  of 
every  thinkable  reality  is  our  spiritual  reality,  one,  in- 
finite, universal, — the  reality  which  unites  us  all  in  one 


^  Many  speak  of  the  universal  and  say  that  they  conceive  this 
universal  as  concrete  and  immanent.  Few,  however,  effectively 
fix  their  thought  on  that  universality  which  alone  is  such,  which 
alone  can  be  such,  which  has  nothing  outside  of  itself,  not  even 
the  particular,  and  which  is  ideal  on  condition  that  the  idea  to 
which  it  belongs  be  reality  itself  in  all  its  determinateness.  And 
so  in  speaking  of  "universal"  and  of  "individual"  we  must  re- 
member that  the  latter  cannot  be  anything  without  being  the 
former,  since  indeed  the  imiversal  is  not  a  merely  abstract  idea, 
but  reality,  the  reality  of  thought.  Therefore  I  have  here  used 
the  expression  "really  universal". — G.  G. 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         117 

sole  spiritual  life;  the  reality  in  which  teacher  and 
pupils  meet  when  by  their  reciprocal  comprehensions 
they  constitute  a  real  school. 

What  then  is  this  one,  infinite,  universal  reality?  Is 
this  question  truly  unanswerable  as  it  seems  to  be,  as 
it  has  often  in  the  past  been  declared  to  be?  For,  it 
has  been  argued,  in  order  to  give  an  answer,  whether 
here  or  elsewhere,  we  must  somehow  think  the  reality 
to  which  the  answer  is  referred.  We  must  think  it  and 
therefore  distinguish  it  from  all  the  others,  and  so  pre- 
suppose it  as  one  existing  among  many  and  as  forming 
with  them  a  multiplicity;  and  this  is  the  very  opposite 
of  that  reality  which  we  are  striving  to  think.  Or,  in 
other  words,  when  we  try  to  say  what  the  subject  is, 
we  must,  somehow,  set  it  as  tlie  object,  and  thus  con- 
vert it  into  what  is  the  opposite  of  the  subject.  Or 
again:  the  subject  cannot  think  itself,  because  if  it 
did,  it  would  split  into  the  duality  of  itself  as  thinking 
and  itself  as  thought,  and  what  is  thinking  is  not  what 
is  thought.  But  all  these  objections  together  with  many 
others  of  the  same  force  that  are  ordinarily  raised 
against  radical  idealism  have  but  one  single  defect; 
which  is  such,  however,  as  to  make  it  hopeless  for  the 
idealist  ever  to  succeed  in  being  understood  by  those 
that  resort  to  this  kind  of  argument.  These  opponents, 
strangely  enough,  miss  the  most  elementary  meaning 
of  the  terms  with  which  they  claim  to  be  familiar. 
They  fail  to  see  that  when  the  idealist  says  "subject," 


ii8         THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

he  cannot  possibly  mean  by  it  one  abstract  term  of  the 
relationship  subject-object,  which,  because  of  this  very 
abstractness,  is  devoid  of  all  consistency.  The  ego  is 
called  "subject,"  because  it  contains  within  itself  an 
object  which  is  not  diverse  but  identical  with  it.  As 
a  pure  subject  it  is  already  a  relationship;  it  is  self- 
affirmation  and  therefore  affirmation  of  an  object,  but 
of  an  object,  be  it  remembered,  in  which  the  subject 
is  not  alienated  from  itself;  by  which,  rather,  it  truly 
returns  to  itself,  embraces  itself,  and  thus  originatively 
realises  itself.  In  order  to  be  /,  I  must  know  myself, 
I  must  set  my  own  self  in  front  of  myself.  Only  thus 
I  am  I,  a  personality,  and  "subject,"  the  centre  of  my 
world  or  of  my  thought.  For  if  I  should  not  objectify 
myself  to  myself,  if  in  the  endeavour  to  free  myself  com- 
pletely from  all  objectivity,  I  were  to  retreat  into  the 
first  term, — a  purely  abstract  one, — of  this  relationship 
by  which  I  posit  myself,  I  should  remain  on  the  hither 
side  of  this  relationship,  that  is  of  that  very  reality  in 
which  I  am  to  realise  myself.  So  then  by  this  inner  ob- 
jectification  the  subject  does  not  at  all  depart  from 
itself.  It  rather  enters  into  its  own  subjectivity,  and 
constitutes  it.  Surely  man  may,  Narcissus-like,  make 
an  idol  of  his  own  self:  he  may  worship  himself  in  a 
fixed  semblance  already  determined  and  crystallised. 
But  in  so  doing,  he  materialises  himself,  makes  his  per- 
son into  a  thing,  looks  away  from  his  true  spiritual  life, 
misses  self -consciousness,  averts  his  thought  from  his 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         119 

own  intimate  being.  This  self-conversion  from  person 
into  thing  takes  place,  not  when  we  think  of  ourselves, 
but  rather  when  we  fail  to  do  so. 

Philosophy  then,  as  the  thinking  of  the  Spirit  in  its 
absolute  subjectivity,  is  the  Spirit's  own  life.  For  the 
spirit  lives  by  constituting  itself  as  the  ego,  and  it  does 
this  by  thinking  itself,  by  acquiring  consciousness  of 
itself.  And  while  philosophising  then,  we  cannot  but 
ask  what  is  this  one  infinite  universal  reality  which  is 
our  Self  and  is  called  the  spirit.  We  cannot  dispense 
with  this  inquiry  into  the  attributes  of  the  spirit,  which 
is  at  the  same  time  the  inquiry  into  the  attributes  of 
culture. 

The  examination  of  the  possibility  of  this  investiga- 
tion has  carried  us,  without  our  being  aware  of  it,  into 
the  very  midst  of  the  inquiry  itself.  For  what  we  con- 
sidered as  an  elementary  meaning  of  the  word 
"spirit,"  the  ego,  which  is  not  something  in  unrelated 
immediacy,  but  which  constitutes  itself,  posits  itself, 
realises  itself  in  that  it  thinks  itself  and  becomes  self- 
consciousness, — this  is  also  the  ultimate  characteristic 
which  can  be  assigned  to  the  spirit,  or  to  man  himself, 
that  is,  to  what  in  man  is  essentially  human.  If  we 
examine  all  the  other  differences  that  have  been 
assigned  or  could  be  found  by  which  the  spirit  is 
distinguishable  from  things,  we  shall  find,  after  due 
reflection,  that  they  all  cease  to  have  a  real  meaning 
as  soon  as  we  neglect  the  most  profound  characteristic 


120        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

of  spiritual  reality,  viz.,  that  this  reality  is  generated 
by  virtue  of  consciousness.  Every  form  of  reality 
other  than  spiritual,  not  only  is  presented  to  thought 
as  not  conditioned  by  consciousness,  but  seems  to 
afford  no  possibility  of  being  thought  (in  relation  to 
consciousness)  otherwise  than  as  conditioning  this  very 
consciousness.  And  when  we  say  of  the  spiritual  being 
that  it  does  not  know  what  it  is,  that  it  is  not  acquainted 
with  itself,  that  it  therefore  remains  concealed  from 
itself,  we  conceive  then  its  spiritual  being  in  a  manner 
analogous  to  that  by  which  we  conceive  material  or  bod- 
ily being, — externally  visible,  but  internally  unknown. 
And  we  say  that  the  individual  fails  to  grasp  his  own 
moral  nature,  because  in  fact  v*^e  make  this  moral  be- 
ing into  something  natural,  similar  to  that  which  is  at- 
tributed to  each  one  of  the  things  that  the  spirit  sets  in 
opposition  to  itself. 

But  the  spirit  has  no  nature  of  its  own,  no  destiny  to 
direct  its  course,  no  predetermined  inevitable  lot.  It 
has  no  fixed  qualities,  no  set  mode  of  being,  such  as 
constitute,  from  the  birth  to  the  death  of  an  individual, 
the  species  to  which  it  belongs,  to  whose  law  it  is  com- 
pelled by  nature  to  submit,  whose  tyrannical  limits  and 
bounds  he  can  never  trespass.  The  spirit,  we  have 
seen,  cannot  but  be  conceived  as  free,  and  its  freedom  is 
this  privileged  attitude  to  be  what  it  wants  to, — angel 
or  beast,  as  the  ancients  said;  good  or  evil,  true  or  false, 
or,  generally  speaking,  to  be  or  not  to  be.    To  be  or  not 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         121 

to  be  man, — the  spirit,  that  which  he  is,  and  which 
he  would  not  be  if  he  did  not  become. 

Man  is  not  man  by  virtue  of  natural  laws.  He  be- 
comes man.  By  man  I  do  not  mean  an  animal  among 
animals,  held  to  no  accounting  of  his  deeds,  who  comes 
into  the  world,  grows,  lives,  and  dies,  unaware.  Man 
from  the  time  he  considers  himself  such,  and  in  so 
far  as  he  considers  himself  such,  becomes  through  his 
own  efforts.  He  makes  himself  what  he  is  the  first 
time  he  opens  his  eyes  on  his  inner  consciousness  and 
says  "I," — the  "I"  which  never  would  have  been 
uttered,  had  he  not  been  aroused  from  the  sluggish 
torpor  of  natural  beings  (such  as  our  phantasy  repre- 
sents them)  and  had  not  started  thinking  under  his 
own  power  and  through  his  own  determination. 

This  freedom  which  is  man's  prerogative  offers 
merely  an  external  view,  has  a  very  hazy  consistency, 
and  appears  as  something  illusory,  only  because  we  do 
not  define  it  exclusively  as  autonomous  becoming  or 
self-making.  For  in  fact  "becoming"  is  ordinarily 
understood  in  a  way  which  does  not  admit  of  being 
considered  as  man's  prerogative.  Does  not  every  liv- 
ing being  become?  The  plant  vegetates  only  because  it 
too  has  an  inborn  potency  by  which  it  is  forced  from 
one  stage  of  development  to  the  next,  from  which  in 
this  process  it  acquires  the  mode  of  being  which  is 
peculiarly  its  own,  which  it  did  not  have  before,  which 
no  other  being  could  from  the  outside  have  conferred 


122        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

upon  it.  And  yet  the  plant  is  not  a  person  but  a  thing: 
it  is  not  spirit,  but  a  simple  object,  and  as  such  it  is 
endowed  with  a  definite  nature  and  moved  by  a  definite 
law,  which  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the  freedom  which 
is  peculiar  to  the  spirit. 

I  might  without  further  thought  say  that  this  concep- 
tion of  becoming,  referred  to  the  plant  as  a  plant,  is 
improper,  that  in  reality  the  plant  does  not  become 
for  the  very  reason  that  we  deny  it  its  freedom. 
But  I  shall  begin  by  stating  that  the  becoming  which 
we  attribute  to  the  spiritual  reality  must  be  specified 
and  determined  with  greater  accuracy,  if  we  are  to 
consider  it  as  the  characteristic  of  this  reality.  When 
so  specified  and  determined,  it  will  be  found  to  coincide 
with  the  conception  of  freedom.  Becoming,  then,  can 
be  taken  in  two  ways,  which  for  brevity's  sake  we  shall 
call  the  autonomous  and  the  heteronomous.  That  is, 
the  being  which  becomes  may  have  the  law  of  its  be- 
coming either  in  itself  or  outside  of  itself.  Becoming 
covers  such  cases  as,  for  example,  the  filling  of  a  vessel 
into  which  a  liquid  is  poured.  But  this  becoming  takes 
place  in  a  manner  which  has  its  law  in  the  person  that 
fills  the  vessel;  and  the  filling  therefore  may  be  con- 
sidered not  so  much  a  becoming  as  the  effect  of  a  be- 
coming, that  is,  as  the  result  of  that  act  which  is  be- 
ing performed  by  man.  An  heteronomous  becoming  is 
to  be  traced  back  to  the  becoming  of  the  cause  which 
produces  it.    The  plant  vegetates,  and  its  vegetation 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         123 

is  a  development,  a  becoming.  But  could  it  grow  with- 
out the  rays  of  the  sun,  the  moisture  of  the  soil?  The 
plant  vegetates  in  consequence  of  its  nature,  that  nature 
which  in  accord  with  our  ordinary  way  of  considering 
plant  life  it  possessed  from  the  time  it  was  a  green  blade 
just  sprouting;  nay,  from  the  time  it  was  a  seed  in  the 
ground,  or  rather  when  it  was  as  yet  in  the  plant 
that  produced  the  seed,  or  better  still  when  it  was 
in  its  infinitely  remote  origin.  It  is  evident  therefore 
that  we  cannot  think  of  the  law  of  becoming  as  resid- 
ing, so  to  speak,  within  a  given  plant.  Whether  we  call 
it  nature  or  name  it  God,  this  law  transcends  the  be- 
coming of  the  plant,  its  heteronomous  becoming  as  we 
called  it,  and  is  properly  the  becoming  of  something 
else.  But  the  becoming  of  man  is  autonomous.  If  he 
becomes  intelligent,  that  is,  if  he  understands,  he  does 
so  through  a  principle  which  is  intrinsically  his  own; 
for  no  man  can  be  made  to  comprehend  what  he  him- 
self will  not  grasp.  If  he  becomes  good,  his  perfected 
will  can  in  no  manner  whatsoever  be  considered  as  de- 
termined by  an  outside  cause,  without  at  the  same  time 
being  thereby  deprived  of  all  that  is  characteristic  of 
goodness. 

But  in  stating  that  man's  becoming  is  autonomous 
(or  true)  we  have  simply  formulated  a  problem  with- 
out giving  it  a  solution.  What  does  this  autono- 
mous becoming  consist  in?  Simply  to  notice  its  ex- 
istence would  never  help  us  to  understand  it.    Every 


124        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

fact  is  intelligible  only  as  an  effect  of  a  cause.  And 
a  cause  is  a  cause  on  condition  that  it  be  a  thing 
other  than  the  effect.  In  order  to  understand  the  au- 
tonomous becoming  or  freedom  of  the  spirit,  we  must 
not  consider  it  as  a  fact,  that  is,  as  something  done.  A 
thing  made  presupposes  the  making;  and  from  the  deed 
we  must  rise  to  the  doing,  but  to  a  doing  which  shall 
not  itself  be  a  thing  done,  a  fact,  and  similar  therefore 
to  the  doings  which  we  witness  as  mere  spectators.  The 
doing  in  which  our  autonomous  becoming  is  detected  is 
that  one  of  which  We  are  not  spectators  but  actors,  we 
the  spectators  of  every  other  doing,  we  as  the  thinkmg 
Activity. 

This  then  is  the  becoming  which  rigorously  may  be 
called  autonomous  :  the  one  which  we  know  not  as  spec- 
tators but  as  actors,  which  comes  forth  as  that  reality 
which  is  produced  by  the  act  of  knowing,  and  therefore 
is  not  known  because  it  exists,  but  exists  because  it  is 
known, — our  existence.  It  is  the  existence  of  us  who 
know,  for  example,  that  a  =  b,  and  who  are  such  only 
in  so  far  as  we  know  and  are  conscious  of  knowing  that 
a  =  b, — of  us  who  suffer  or  rejoice,  and  who  cannot 
be  in  this  or  that  state  except  by  knowing  it,  so  that 
no  cause  could  reduce  us  to  such  a  state,  unless  we  were 
conscious  of  such  a  cause  and  felt  its  valid  application 
to  us, — of  us,  above  all,  who  are  not  ourselves  unless  we 
apperceive  ourselves,  by  reflecting  upon  ourselves,  and 
thus  acquiring  existence  as  a  personality,  as  human  self- 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         125 

consciousness,  as  thought.  Thought  in  opposition  to 
nature,  with  which  it  is  constantly  contrasted,  is  noth- 
ing but  this  self-reflection  which  establishes  the  per- 
sonality, and  that  reality  which,  absolutely,  is  not,  but 
becomes.  Every  reality  other  than  thought  becomes 
relatively;  and  its  becoming  is  intelligible  simply  as  the 
effect  of  another  becoming.  Only  thought,  only  the 
Spirit,  is  absolute  becoming,  and  its  becoming  is  its 
liberty. 

But  whether  it  be  called  "freedom"  or  "becoming," 
the  important  thing  is  to  avoid  the  mistake,  which  was 
general  in  the  past  and  is  still  very  common  to-day,  of 
separating  this  attribute  of  the  spirit  from  the  spirit 
itself,  thus  failing  to  understand  exactly  what  is  prop- 
erly called  the  attribute.  For  example,  we  say  that  the 
triangle  is  a  three-sided  plane  figure,  and  we  seem  to  be 
able  to  distinguish  and  therefore  to  separate  logically 
the  idea  of  triangle  from  the  idea  of  three-sided  plane 
figure.  But  a  little  reflection  will  make  it  evident 
that  in  thinking  the  idea  of  triangle,  we  think  nothing 
unless  we  at  least  think  the  plane  trilateral  figure.  So 
that  we  do  not  really  have  two  ideas,  which  how- 
ever closely  connected  may  yet  be  separated  to  be  con- 
joined again:  what  we  have  is  one  single  idea.  And 
such  is  the  agreement  of  the  becoming  and  of  the 
spirit,  and  in  general  of  every  attribute  and  of  the 
reality  to  which  it  belongs.  When  we  begin  inquiring 
whether  the  spirit  is  free  or  not,  we  set  out  on  an 


126         THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

erroneous  track  which  will  take  us  into  a  blind  alley 
with  no  possibility  of  exit.     All  the  unsurmountable 
difficulties  encountered  at  all  times  by  the  advocates 
of  the  doctrine  of  freedom  arise  in  fact  from  the  error 
of  first  thinking  the  spirit  (or  whatsoever  that  reality 
may  be  for  which  freedom  is  claimed)  and  of  subse- 
quently propounding  the  question  of  its  properties. 
For  the  spirit  is  jree  in  as  much  as  it  is  nothing  else 
than  freedom;  and  the  spirit  ''becomes"  in  as  much  as 
it  is  nothing  else  than  ''becoming,"  and  this  becoming 
cannot  therefore  be  considered  as  the  husk  enveloping 
the  kernel — the  spirit.     There  is  no  kernel  to  the  spirit: 
it  is  in  no  manner  comparable  to  a  moving  body  in 
which  the  body  itself  could  be  distinguished  from  mo- 
tion, and  would  admit  therefore  of  being  thought  as  in 
a  state  of  rest  even  though  rest  is  considered  impossible. 
'  The  spirit,  continuing  our  simile  and  correcting  it,  is 
motion  without  a  mass, — a  motion  surely  that  cannot 
be  represented  to  our  imagination,  for  the  very  reason 
that  motion  is  peculiar  to  the  body  and  does  not  belong 
to  the  spirit;  and  imagination  is  the  thought  of  bodies, 
and  not  of  the  thought  which  thinks  the  bodies.     This 
idea  of  motion  without  a  mass,  baffling  as  it  is  to  our 
imagination,  is  perhaps  the  most  effective  warning  that 
can  be  given  to  those  who  wish  to  fix  in  their  minds  the 
exact  concept  of  the  nature  of  the  spirit.     In  order  to 
avoid  new  terminology  not  sufficiently  intelligible  and 
therefore  unpractical,  we  may  resort  to  material  ex- 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         127 

pressions,  and  speak  of  the  nature  of  the  spirit  as  of  a 
"thing"  which  becomes,  and  use  such  words  as  ''ker- 
nel" and  "husk."  But  we  must  never  lose  sight  of 
the  fact  that  this  manner  of  speaking,  which  is  appro- 
priate for  things,  is  not  suitable  for  the  spirit,  and  can 
be  resorted  to  only  with  the  understanding  that  the 
spirit  is  not  a  thing,  and  that  therefore  its  whole  being 
consists  solely  in  its  becoming. 

We  are  now  in  a  position  to  understand  the  meaning 
of  the  spirituality  of  culture,  that  is,  of  the  reduction 
of  culture  to  the  human  personality  obtained  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  as  well  as  the  pedagogical  interest 
of  this  reduction.  Culture,  as  the  entire  content  of 
education,  because  it  must  be  sought  within  the  per- 
sonality, and  because  it  resolves  itself  into  the  life  of 
the  spirit,  is  not  a  thing,  and  does  not  admit  of  being 
conceived  statically  either  in  books  or  in  the  mind: 
not  before  nor  after  it  is  apprehended.  It  does  not 
exist  in  libraries  or  in  schools,  or  in  us  before  we  go 
to  school,  or  while  we  still  remain  within  its  walls,  or 
after  our  nourished  minds  have  taken  leave  of  it.  It 
is  in  no  place,  at  no  time,  in  no  person.  Culture  is  not, 
because  if  it  were,  it  would  have  to  be  some  "thing," 
whereas  by  definition  it  is  the  negation  of  that  which 
is  capable  of  being  anything  whatever.  It  is  culture 
in  so  far  as  it  becomes.  Culture  exists  as  it  develops, 
and  in  no  other  manner.  It  is  always  in  the  course  of 
being  formed,  it  lives. 


128         THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

But  to  understand  this  life,  and  in  order  to  grasp 
more  firmly  this  "idea"  of  culture  which  is  a  spiritual 
banner  to  rally  educators,  I  must  again  bring  up  a 
certain  distinction.  Culture,  I  said,  lives  (that  is,  it 
is  culture)  when  it  is  endowed  with  a  life  that  is  en- 
tirely different  from  the  life  which  biologically  ani- 
mates all  living  beings,  ourselves  included.  The 
difference  can  be  stated  as  follows:  in  the  case  of  every 
other  life,  we  can  assert  its  existence  in  so  far  as  we 
have  knowledge  of  it  either  directly  or  indirectly.  It 
is  always,  however,  different  from  us  and  from  our 
knowing  it;  so  much  so  that  the  possibilities  of  going 
astray  are  very  great.  But  for  the  life  of  culture,  which 
is  the  life  of  our  spirit,  we  have  no  need  of  being 
informed  by  the  experience  of  others,  or  even  of  our- 
selves. We  live  it.  It  is  our  very  thought, — this 
thought  which  may  indeed  err  in  respect  to  what  is 
different  from  itself,  as  not  tallying  with  it;  but  which 
cannot  possibly  deceive  us  in  regard  to  itself,  since 
it  is  unable  not  to  be  itself.  The  Hfe  of  culture  is 
not  a  spectacle  but  an  activity.  Nor  is  it  activity 
for  some  and  a  spectacle  for  others.  Culture  is  never 
a  show  for  any  one.  No  person  can  ever  know  for 
his  fellow  being.  (What,  for  me,  Aristotle  knows,  is 
what  I  know  of  Aristotle. 

Culture, — this  untiring  activity  which  never  for  a 
moment  turns  into  a  spectacle  for  any  of  us,  which 
ever  therefore   demands  effort   and  toil, — could   not 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         129 

avoid  becoming  a  show  and  being  made  up  into  a 
"thing,"  could  not  escape  the  danger  of  dying  as  cul- 
ture by  degenerating  into  something  anti-spiritual,  fruit- 
less, and  material,  if,  while  yet  being  activity,  it  were 
not  at  the  same  time  in  some  way  a  spectacle  to  itself. 
This  point  demands  careful  consideration  It  is  not 
sufficient  to  say  that  culture,  that  thought  is  life, 
and  not  the  thought  of  life.  We  will  not  attain  the 
conception  of  culture  by  merely  contrasting,  as  we 
have  done,  our  life,  the  life  we  lead  as  actors,  with 
the  life  of  others  which  we  behold  as  spectators,  or  by 
opposing  the  life  of  ourselves  as  thinking  beings  to  the 
life  we  possess  as  organic  beings,  to  the  life  of  our 
senses  by  which  we  are  on  a  par  with  the  other  animals. 
The  life  of  thought,  in  its  peculiar  inwardness  and  sub- 
jectivity, is  still  conceived  to-day  by  powerful  thinkers, 
by  analogy  with  life  in  a  biological  sense,  as  irreflective 
and  instinctive,  or,  as  they  say,  as  simple  intuition. 
But  thought  which  though  living  is  irreflective  becomes 
indeed  an  active  performance,  a  drama  without  spec- 
tators, but  it  also  remains  as  a  drama  represented  for 
spectators  who  are  absent,  and  who  should  be  informed 
of  those  things  which  direct  experience  had  not  placed 
before  their  eyes.  And  it  is  difficult  to  surmise  who 
would  impart  to  them  this  information  if  the  house 
were  empty. 

In  other  words,  I  mean  to  say  that  this  would-be 
intuitive  life  of  thought,  fading  away  into  the  subcon- 


I30        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

scious,  melting  into  the  naturality  of  the  unconscious, 
is,  like  every  form  of  natural  life  effectually  a  stranger 
to  thought  (that  is  conceived  as  a  stranger  to  thought), 
an  object  and  nothing  more  than  an  object  of  thought, 
and  therefore  incapable  of  ever  being  a  subject,  of 
ever  having  value  as  subject,  that  is,  as  thought  itself. 
For  that  reason  we  can  never  effectively  think  it;  for 
never  can  we  truly  think  any  thing  which  is  natural 
and  thought  of  as  natural.  Who  can  say  what  the  life 
of  the  plant  is?  To  posit  nature  by  thought  is  to 
posit  something  irreducible  to  thought  and  therefore 
unthinkable.  This  perhaps  would  not  necessarily  be 
a  serious  drawback  for  the  life  itself  of  thought  if  we 
lived  it.  For  would  it  not  be  sufficient  to  live  it? 
Why  insist  on  thinking  its  life?  Why  demand  a  head, 
so  to  speak,  as  a  hood  for  the  head?  But  there  is 
a  drawback,  and  a  serious  one,  as  a  result  of  the 
fact  that  this  life  itself  of  thought  does  not  now,  never 
will  in  the  future,  come  before  us  as  that  irreflective 
life  which  it  is  claimed  to  be:  it  comes  to  us  as  a  philos- 
ophy which  recommends  it  and  advocates  it  as  the 
only  possible  life  of  thought.  In  fact,  in  order  to  be 
able  to  speak  of  this  life,  we  must  first  think  it.  But 
how  could  we  think  it,  if  the  only  possible  life  was  that 
one  which  we  intend  to  think,  and  not  the  one  with 
which  we  think  this  irreflective  life? 

So  then,  in  order  that  this  life  of  ours  (truly,  inti- 
mately, spiritually  ours)  may  not  be  confounded  with 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         131 

the  life  of  natural  things,  with  that  pseudo-life  which 
is  only  an  apparent  becoming,  an  effect  of  another 
becoming  by  which  it  is  transcended,  it  is  not  sufficient, 
as  I  started  out  to  say,  to  call  it  a  drama  and  not  a 
spectacle.  As  a  result  of  more  careful  determinations 
we  may  now  say  that  it  is  not  another  man's  spectacle, 
but  our  drama  which  is  at  the  same  time  our  spectacle 
too.  In  it  the  actors  play  to  themselves.  It  is  self- 
conscious  activity.  It  is  activity  perpetually  watching 
over  itself. 

And  again  :  Just  as  the  becoming  of  the  spirit  would 
cease  to  be  that  one  sole  becoming  which  it  actually  is, 
were  we  to  distinguish  the  spirit  from  its  becoming,  so 
the  consciousness  of  spiritual  activity  would  also  be- 
come unintelligible  if  we  were  to  distinguish,  as  philos- 
ophers insistently  do,  between  activity  and  aware- 
ness, between  the  performance  and  the  show.  The 
distinction  here  too  arises  from  referring  to  the  spirit, 
the  mode  of  thinking  which  is  suited  for  the  thinking 
of  things.  In  the  sphere  of  things,  doing  is  one  thing, 
watching  the  thing  as  it  is  done  is  another.  But  to 
us  the  spirit's  becoming  has  shown  itself  to  be  the 
very  negation  of  this  distinction  between  actor  and 
spectacle,  so  that  in  saying  that  the  actor  is  his  own 
spectator  we  cannot  introduce,  within  the  unity  in 
which  we  had  taken  refuge,  the  dualism  which  is  ex- 
cluded from  the  concept  of  the  spirit.  I  have  spoken 
of  "motion  without  mass,"  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the 


132        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

claims  of  our  imagination.  Now  I  shall  add  some- 
thing that  clashes  even  more  violently  against  the 
laws  which  govern  our  image-making;  and  I  shall  do 
so  in  order  to  make  it  very  clear  that  the  spirit  does 
not  live  in  the  world  of  things  which  is  swept  over 
by  our  imagination.  I  shall  now  call  the  spirit  a  gazing 
motion.  The  spirit's  acting — its  eternal  process,  its 
immanent  becoming — is  not  an  escort  to  thinking,  but 
the  very  thinking  itself,  which  is  neither  cause  nor 
effect:  neither  the  antecedent  nor  the  consequent,  nor 
yet  the  concomitant  of  the  action  by  which  the  spirit 
goes  on  constantly  impersonating  itself.  It  is  this 
very  acting. 

In  accordance  with  the  popular  point  of  view  which, 
as  I  have  said,  is  shared  by  great  philosophers,  a  dis- 
tinction is  made  between  the  spirit  considered  as  will 
and  the  spirit  regarded  as  intellect,  or  as  conscious- 
ness, or  as  thought,  or  whatever  term  may  be  used 
to  indicate  the  becoming  aware  of  this  spiritual  activ- 
ity. But  if  the  spirit  in  that  it  wills  did  not  also  think, 
we  should  be  thrust  back  to  the  position  which  we  have 
shown  above  to  be  untenable,  and  be  forced  to  admit 
that  the  irreflective  life  of  the  spirit  cannot  be  fused 
with  the  reflective  life,  and  is  therefore  unaccountable 
and  unthinkable.  The  will  which  qua  will  is  not  also 
thought,  is  in  respect  to  thought  which  knows  it  a 
simple  object,  a  spectacle  and  not  a  drama.  It  is 
nature   and  not   spirit.    And   a  thought  which   qua 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         133 

thought  is  not  will,  is,  in  respect  to  the  will  which 
integrates  it,  a  spectator  without  a  spectacle.  If  there 
is  to  be  a  drama,  and  a  drama  which  is  the  spirit,  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  will  be  the  thought,  and  that  the 
thought  be  the  will,  over  and  beyond  that  distinction 
which  serves  if  anything  to  characterise  the  opposition 
between  nature  and  spirit. 

Should  we,  returning  to  our  comparison,  demand  of 
that  motion  which  is  spirit  a  moving  mass;  should  we, 
grounded  on  the  naive  and  primitive  conception  which 
identifies  knowing  with  the  seeing  of  external  things, 
demand  within  the  sphere  of  the  spiritual  activity 
itself  a  doing  in  which  knowing  should  find  its  object 
all  ready  made,  we  should  continue  to  wander  helplessly 
in  the  maze  of  things,  and  to  grope  in  the  mystery  of  the 
multiplicity  of  things,  which  are  many  and  yet  are 
not  many.  We  would  be  turning  our  eyes  away  from 
the  lode  star  which  is  the  supreme  concept  of  the 
spirit,  and  thereby  show  ourselves  incapable  of  rising 
to  that  point  of  view  which  is  the  peculiar  one  of 
culture. 

Culture,  as  the  spirit's  life,  which  is  a  drama  and 
self-awareness,  is  not  simply  effort  and  uneasy  toil, 
it  is  not  a  tormenting  restlessness  which  we  may  some- 
times shake  off,  from  which  we  would  gladly  be  res- 
cued. Nor  is  it  a  feverish  excitement  that  consumes 
our  life-blood  and  tosses  us  restlessly  on  a  sick-bed. 
The  spirit's  life  is  not  vexation  but  liberation  from 


134        THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

care.  For  the  greatest  of  sorrows,  Leopardi  tells  us, 
is  ennui,  the  inert  tedious  weariness  of  those  who  find 
nothing  to  do,  and  pine  away  in  a  wasting  repose 
which  is  the  very  antithesis  of  the  life  of  the  spirit. 
The  negation  of  this  life, — the  obstacles,  the  hind- 
rances, the  halts  it  encounters, — that  is  the  source  of 
woe.  But  life  with  its  energy  is  joy;  it  is  joy  because 
it  is  activity,  our  activity.  Another  man's  activity  as 
the  negation  of  our  own  is  troublesome  and  exasperat- 
ing. The  music  which  we  enjoy  (and  we  are  able 
to  enjoy  it  by  being  active)  is  our  enjoyment.  But 
the  musical  entertainment  in  which  we  have  no  part 
disturbs  us,  interferes  with  our  work,  irritates  us. 
Our  neighbour's  joys  in  which  for  some  reason  we  are 
unable  to  participate  awaken  envy  in  us,  gall  us,  bring 
some  manner  of  displeasure  to  our  hearts. 

Culture,  then,  as  life  of  the  spirit,  is  effort,  and  work, 
but  never  a  drudgery.  It  would  be  toilsome  labour  if 
the  spirit  had  lived  its  life  before  we  began  to  work; 
if  this  life  had  blossomed  forth,  and  had  realised  itself 
without  our  efforts.  But  our  effort,  our  work  is  this 
very  life  of  the  spirit,  its  nature,  in  which  culture 
develops.  Work  is  not  a  burdensome  yoke  on  our 
will  and  on  our  personality.  It  is  liberation,  freedom, 
the  act  by  which  liberty  asserts  its  being.  Work  may 
sometimes  appear  irksome  because  the  freedom  of  its 
movement  is  checked  by  certain  resistances  which  have 
to  be  overcome  and  removed.     But  in  such  cases  it 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         135 

is  not  work  which  vexes  us,  but  rather  its  opposite, 
sloth,  against  which  it  must  combat.  It  follows  then 
that  the  more  intensely  we  occupy  ourselves,  the  less 
heavily  we  are  burdened  by  pain.  For  as  our  efforts 
redouble  and  the  resistance  is  proportionately  reduced, 
the  spirit,  which  perishes  in  enthralment,  is  enabled 
to  live  a  richer  life. 

Culture  then  is  the  extolment  of  our  being,  the 
formation  of  our  spirit,  or  better,  its  liberation  and 
its  beatification.  As  the  realisation  of  the  spirit's  own 
nature,  it  is  opposed  to  all  suffering  and  is  the  source 
of  blissfulness.  But  it  must  not  be  regarded  as  the 
fated,  inevitable  working  out  of  an  instinctive  prin- 
ciple, or  a  natural  law.  The  building  of  a  bird's  nest, 
which  is  the  necessary  antecedent  to  generation  and 
reproduction,  cannot  be  looked  upon  as  work;  and  it 
is  fruitless  to  try  to  guess  whether  this  act  is  a  cause 
of  pleasure  to  the  bird  or  a  source  of  suffering.  In- 
stinct leads  the  individual  to  self-sacrifice  on  behalf 
of  the  species.  But  not  even  this  fact,  vouched  for 
solely  by  external  inferences,  authorises  us  to  con- 
clude that  the  fulfilment  of  an  instinctive  impulse  is 
actually  accompanied  by  pain.  So  that  it  seems  wiser 
to  keep  off  this  shppery  surface  of  conjecture.  It  will 
be  sufficient  to  note  here  that  an  action  prompted  by 
instinct,  conceived  as  merely  instinctive  and  thoroughly 
unconscious  of  the  end  to  which  it  is  subservient,  is 
in  no  way  to  be  compared  with  man's  work.     Human 


y 


136         THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

occupation  is  personality,  will,  consciousness.  The 
animal  does  not  work.  But  culture  we  have  said  is 
work.  For  it  is  liberty,  self-formation,  with  no 
existence  previous  to  the  process;  whereas  the  laws 
which  govern  the  development  of  natural  being  pre- 
exist before  the  development  itself.  Culture  exists 
only  in  so  far  as  it  is  formed,  and  it  is  constituted 
solely  by  being  developed.  And  what  is  more,  as  we 
shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  culture  does  not  even 
count  on  a  pre-existing  external  matter  ready  to  re- 
ceive its  informing  imprint. 

To  conclude  then:  culture  is  (in  its  becoming)  only 
to  the  extent  that  the  cultivated  man  feels  its  worth, 
desires  it,  and  realises  it.  It  is  a  value,  but  not  in  the 
sense  that  man  first  appreciates  it  and  subsequently 
looks  for  it  and  strives  to  actualise  it.  The  value 
which  man  assigns  to  culture  is  that  which  he  gradually 
goes  on  ascribing  to  his  own  culture,  and  whose  develop- 
ment coincides  with  the  development  of  his  own  person- 
ality. What  we  ought  to  want  is  exactly  what  we  do 
want;  but  we  want  just  that  which  we  ought  to.  The 
ideal,  not  the  abstract,  inadequate,  and  false  one,  but 
the  true  ideal  of  our  personality,  is  that  one  toward 
whose  realisation  we  are  actually  working.  And  the 
ideal  of  our  culture  is  that  self-same  one  towards  which 
our  busy  person  remains  turned  in  the  actuality  of  its 
becoming.  But  work  implies  a  programme,  and  spirit 
means  "ideal;"  and  when  we  speak  of  culture  we  sig- 


THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE         137 

nify  thereby  the  value  of  culture,  of  a  culture  which 
as  yet  is  not  but  which  must  be.  Life  is  the  life  of 
the  spirit  as  a  duty, — as  a  life  which  we  live,  feeling 
all  along  that  it  is  our  duty  to  live  it,  and  that  it  depends 
on  us  whether  it  exists  or  not.  And  culture  could  not 
re-enter  as  it  does  in  the  life  of  the  spirit,  if  it  too  were 
not  a  duty,  that  is,  if  it  were  not  this  culture  to  whose 
development  our  personality  is  pledged.  So  interpreted, 
culture,  far  from  being  a  destiny  to  which  we  are  bound, 
is  the  progressive  triumph  of  our  very  freedom.  On 
these  terms  only,  culture  is  a  growth,  and  the  spirit  a 
becoming. 

This  attribute,  which  is  an  ethical  one,  is  not  added 
to  the  attribute  of  Becoming  any  more  than  "becom- 
ing" was  superadded  to  "freedom."  For  just  as  Be- 
coming develops  the  concept  of  freedom,  so  does  the 
ethical  develop  and  accomplish  the  concept  of 
becoming.  Freedom  is  never  true  liberty  unless  it  is 
a  process,  an  absolute  Becoming;  but  Becoming  can 
only  be  absolute  by  being  moral.  And  it  is  therefore 
impossible  to  speak  of  learning  which  is  not  ethical. 

It  has  often  been  repeated  for  thousands  and  thou- 
sands of  years  that  knowledge  is  neither  good  nor  bad; 
that  it  is  either  true  or  false.  But  is  the  True  a  differ- 
ent category  from  the  Good?  Are  they  not  rather  one 
sole  identical  category?  Truth  could  be  maintained 
in  a  place  quite  distinct  from  the  grounds  of  morality, 
only  so  long  as  the  world  clung  to  that  conception  of 


138         THE  ATTRIBUTES  OF  CULTURE 

truth  which  was  the  agreement  of  the  subject  with 
an  assumed  external  object.  But  now  by  truth  we 
understand  the  value  of  thought  in  which  the  subject 
becomes  an  object  to  itself  and  thus  realises  itself; 
and  in  clarifying  this  new  conception  of  truth,  we 
discover  that  morality  is  identical  with  it.  For  know- 
ing is  acting,  but  an  acting  which  being  untrammelled 
conforms  with  an  ideal — Duty.  And  in  this  manner 
we  explain  to  ourselves  why  the  mysterious  and  in- 
spired voice  of  conscience  has  at  all  times  admonished 
man  to  worship  Truth  with  that  same  intense  earnest- 
ness, with  those  same  scruples,  with  that  identical 
personal  energy,  which  we  devote  to  every  phase  of  our 
moral  mission.  The  cult  of  truth  is  in  fact  what  we 
otherwise  call  and  understand  to  be  morality,  namely, 
the  formation  of  our  personality,  which  can  be  ours 
only  by  belonging  to  all  men,  and  which,  whether  or 
not  ours,  is  not  immediate,  not  a  given  personality, 
but  rather  one  which  is  intent  on  self-realisation,  on 
that  sacred  and  eternal  task  which  is  the  Good. 

If  we  now  feel  culture  to  be  free,  to  be  a  process, 
and  an  ethical  one  at  that,  we  have  succeeded  in  grasp- 
ing its  spirituality,  and  we  are  in  a  position  therefore 
to  proceed  with  security  on  that  way  which  opens 
before  the  educator's  eyes,  as  he  intently  goes  about 
his  work  of  creation,  or,  if  you  so  wish  to  call  it,  his 
task  as  a  promoter  of  culture. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

Educators  of  the  modern  school  are  bent  on  trans- 
forming its  methods  and  institutions  on  the  basis  of  the 
conception  set  forth  in  the  previous  chapters.  The 
subtle  discussions  required  to  make  this  conception 
clear  must  have  convinced  the  reader  that  this  work  of 
educational  reform  could  only  succeed  if  preceded  by 
such  philosophical  doctrines  as  have  recently  been 
evolved  in  Italy  and  are  now  becoming  the  accepted 
faith  of  the  newer  generation.  To  this  new  belief  the 
school  must  be  converted,  if  it  is  ever  going  to  conquer 
that  freedom  which  has  been  its  constant  aspiration, 
and  which  seems  to  be  an  indispensable  condition  for 
its  further  growth. 

The  faith  of  the  modern  man  cleaves  to  a  life  con- 
ceived and  directed  idealistically.  He  believes  that  life 
— true  life — is  man's  free  creation;  that  in  it,  there- 
fore, human  aims  should  gain  an  ever  fuller  realisation  ; 
and  that  these  aims,  these  ends  will  not  be  attained 
unless  thought,  which  is  man's  specific  force,  extends 
its  sway  so  as  to  embrace  nature,  penetrate  it,  and 
resolve  it  into  its  own  substance.  He  believes  that 
nature,  thus  turned  into  an  instrument  of  thought, 

139 


HO  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

yields  readily  to  its  will,  not  being  per  se  opposed  or 
repugnant  to  the  life  and  activity  of  the  spirit,  but 
rather  homogeneous  and  identical  with  it.  He  be- 
lieves, moreover,  that  this  sway  can  only  be  obtained 
by  amplifying,  strengthening,  and  constantly  poten- 
tiating our  human  energy,  which  means  thinking, 
knowing,  self-realising;  and  that  self-realisation  is  not 
possible  unless  it  is  free,  unless  it  be  rescued  from  the 
prejudice  of  dependence  upon  external  principles,  and 
unless  it  affirms  itself  as  absolute  infinite  activity. 
This  is  the  Kingdom  of  Man  prophesied  at  the  dawn 
of  modern  thought.  This  is  the  work  which  science, 
art,  religion,  not  less  than  political  revolutions  and 
social  reforms,  have  gradually  been  accomplishing  and 
perfecting  in  the  last  three  hundred  years.  This  new 
spiritual  orientation  has  to  a  certain  extent  influenced 
teaching;  and  though  without  a  general  programme 
of  substantial  reforms,  the  ideal  of  education  has  been 
transformed  along  idealistic  lines.  This  transforma- 
tion, strange  to  say,  has  been  effected  in  part  by  means 
of  institutions  which  have  arisen  as  a  result  of  the  re- 
cent development  of  industrial  life  and  of  the  corre- 
sponding complexity  in  economic  and  social  relations. 
These  schools,  because  of  their  names,  seem  to  be  quite 
removed  from  the  idealistic  tendencies  of  modem  civ- 
ilisations. Whether  they  be  called  technical,  business, 
or  industrial  schools,  they  seem  to  be  and  are  in  fact 
the  result  of  a  realistic  conception  of  life.     But  such 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  141 

realism,  we  must  remember,  is  far  from  being  opposed 
to  our  idealism,  and  should  not  be  compared  with  the 
realism  which  we  have  objected  to.  We  should  rather 
consider  it  as  the  most  effective  demonstration  of  the 
idealistic  trend  of  our  times.  For  these  institutions 
are  founded  on  the  theory  that  knowledge  increases 
man's  power  in  the  world  by  enabling  him  to  overcome 
the  obstacles  by  which  nature^  if  ignored  and  unknown, 
would  hinder  the  free  development  of  civilisation  in 
general,  and  of  those  individuals  in  particular  in  whom 
and  through  whom  civilisation  becomes  actual. 

Realism,  on  the  other  hand,  as  the  opposite  of  the 
idealistic  conception  of  life  and  culture,  was  shown  to 
be  based  on  a  conception  of  reality  which  exists  totally 
outside  of  human  thought  and  of  the  civilisation  which 
is  produced  by  it, — of  a  reality  existing  per  se  in  such 
a  way  that  no  end  peculiar  to  man,  no  free  human  life, 
can  be  conceived  which  will  have  the  power  of  bending 
this  reality  toward  itself,  of  resolving  it  within  itself. 
This  realistic  point  of  view  is  not  different  from  the  out- 
look of  the 'primitive  man  who,  awed  by  the  might  of 
nature,  kneels  submissively  before  its  invisible  power, 
which,  he  thinks,  controls  these  forces.  It  is  the  ac- 
cepted belief  of  the  naive  and  dreamy  consciousness  of 
child-like  humanity;  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  conception 
which  is  opposed  to  the  course  constantly  followed  by 
civilisation.  Its  dangers  must  be  made  very  clear 
and  its  menace  removed  from  the  path  of  its  triumph- 


142  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

ant  enemy.  To  overcome  this  realistic  point  of  view 
in  the  field  of  education  is  the  duty  of  teachers,  who 
must  be  in  a  position  to  recognise  it,  and  to  track  it 
into  whatever  hiding  places  it  may  lurk.  I  intend 
therefore  in  this  chapter  to  point  out  some  of  the  most 
notable  realistic  prejudices  which,  though  still  tolerated 
by  contemporary  thought,  ought  to  be  definitely 
stamped  out,  if  we  are  really  convinced  of  the  spiritual 
character  of  culture  and  of  its  essential  attributes. 

I  shall  here  bring  up  again  a  consideration  which  I 
touched  upon  in  the  first  chapter, — an  idea  which  is 
the  fundamental  prejudice  of  the  realistic  theory  of 
education  in  its  antagonism  to  the  profound  exigencies 
of  the  free  spiritual  life  which  education  should  pro- 
mote. I  mean  the  idea  of  Science  (with  a  capital  S), — 
that  Science  which  is  imagined  as  towering  over  and 
above  the  men  who  toil  and  suffer,  think  and  struggle 
in  quest  of  its  light  and  of  its  force;  that  Science  which 
would  be  so  beautiful,  and  majestic,  and  impressive, 
were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  it  does  not  exist.  This 
Science  is  looked  upon  as  infallible,  without  crises, 
without  reverses,  without  vicissitudes  of  doctrines, 
without  parties,  and  without  nationality, — without 
history  in  short;  for  history  is  full  of  these  baser  oc- 
currences; and  men,  without  a  single  exception,  even 
the  greatest  of  scientists,  even  the  lofty  geniuses  that 
have  transformed  or  systematised  knowledge,  are  all 
in  some  measure  prone  to  err.    The  exceptions  which 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  143 

are  adduced  to  contradict  this  statement  are  so  few, 
so  limited  by  restrictions  and  by  hair-splitting  distinc- 
tions, that  we  can  hardly  allow  them;  especially  when 
we  consider  that  even  granting  the  infallible  oracular 
character  of  some  men's  utterances,  the  fact  remains 
that  his  listeners  must  undergo  the  process  of  under- 
standing him,  and  in  so  doing  they  may  go  astray.  So 
that  from  superhuman  unfailing  verities,  we  slip  back 
instantly  to  human  fallibility.  Infallible  Science,  then, 
is  not  known,  cannot  be  known  to  mankind;  for  the 
simple  reason  that  we  who  constitute  it  are  subject  to 
error,  and  being  ourselves  prone  to  fail,  we  expose 
science  to  the  same  danger.  If  it  does  exist  some- 
where it  surely  is  not  in  this  world  in  which  we  hve, 
thinking,  knowing,  and — creating  science. 

This  mythical  science,  unsullied  and  incorruptible, 
segregated  from  all  possible  intercourse  with  thought, 
ever  soaring  in  the  pure  air  of  divine  essences,  is  yet  the 
mother  of  a  numerous  offspring,  the  parent  of  count- 
less daughters  as  virginal  and  as  infallible  as  the 
mother  herself.  These  are  the  particular  sciences, 
bearing  various  names,  but  all  of  them  equally  worthy 
of  the  distinction  of  the  capital  S  in  the  eyes  of  their 
realistic  worshippers. 

This  mythology  is  taught  in  the  schools  which  too 
often  are  called,  and  without  any  figurative  mean- 
ing, the  shrines  of  learning.  Conceived  as  divinely 
superlative,  as  something  which,  though  revealed  his- 


/ 


144  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

torically  by  the  successive  discoveries  of  privileged 
minds,  is  none  the  less  sharply  distinct  from  the  his- 
tory of  humanity,  science  descends  into  the  school. 
There  it  manifests  itself  as  human  knowledge,  and  is 
communicated  to  the  youthful  minds  eager  to  ascend 
to  the  heaven  of  truth.  And  so  the  school  comes  to  be 
looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  temple,  as  the  Church  where 
the  inspired  Word  of  the  Sacred  Books  is  read  and 
explained  by  those  who  have  been  chosen  by  the 
Divinity  to  act  as  its  interpreters,  as  preachers  of  the 
Faith.  With  this  religious  conception  of  the  school 
we  connect  the  "mission"  of  the  educator,  whose  task, 
when  not  ridiculed  and  lampooned  by  the  same  scoffers 
who  at  all  times  have  jeered  at  the  teachers  of  divinity, 
has  been  surrounded  by  a  glamour  of  religiosity. 
We  see  them  encircled  by  that  halo  of  distant  respect 
which  we  naturally  connect  with  those  who,  acting  as 
intermediaries  between  us  and  the  deity,  are  them- 
selves transfigured  and  deified. 

The  school  then  is  looked  upon  as  a  temple  in  which 
the  pupil  receives  his  spiritual  bread.  But  not  so  the 
home  which  the  boy  must  leave,  that  he  may  satisfy 
his  mysteriously  innate  craving  for  knowledge.  Not 
so  the  street,  where  the  small  boys  gather,  drawn  to- 
gether by  the  irresistible  need  of  pastime,  by  the 
sweet  desire  of  frolicsome  companionship,  by  the  un- 
conscious yearning  after  spiritual  communion  with  the 
world  which  there  makes  its  way  into  the  child's  mind 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  I45 

far  off  from  the  classroom,  and  lavishes  upon  it  its  own 
light,  its  portion  of  thought,  its  share  of  new  experi- 
ences, and  the  joy  of  an  ever  renewed  outpouring  of 
sympathetic  spirituality. 

The  custodian  of  this  temple,  the  schoolmaster,  is 
regarded  as  a  divine,  as  the  minister  who  imparts  the 
consecrated  elements  of  Science,  who  leads  the  pupil 
to  the  "panem  angelorum,"  as  Dante  calls  it.  But 
our  fathers  and  mothers  are  not  so  regarded, — they 
who  were  the  first  custodians  of  a  greater  temple,  the 
world,  to  whose  marvels  they  gradually  initiated  our 
growing  minds;  they  who  by  the  use  of  speech  taught 
us,  without  being  aware  of  it,  infinitely  more  than  the 
best  of  schools  will  ever  be  able  to  teach  us  in  the 
future;  not  our  elder  brothers  to  whom  we  always 
looked  up  in  emulation,  and  from  whom,  even  more 
than  from  our  parents,  we  learned  the  thoughts  and 
the  words  suited  to  our  needs;  not  our  grand- 
mother, who  long  before  our  eager  phantasy  might 
roam  through  the  printed  pages,  gently  led  us  into 
Fairyland,  and  there,  in  the  enchantments  of  a  magic 
world,  disclosed  to  us  that  humanity  which  books  and 
teachers  later  in  life  were  to  re-evoke  for  us.  No! 
There  are  no  altars  to  Science  except  in  the  School- 
house,  and  none  but  educators  may  minister  to  its  cult. 

This  mythological  lore  is  not  merely  a  harmless 
form  of  imagery,  against  which  it  might  be  pedantic 
to  rebel.    It  is  a  real  superstition,  which  has  its  roots 


146  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

deep  down  in  the  personality  of  the  educator;  it 
adheres  parasitically  to  culture,  climbs  over  its  sturdy 
trunk,  drains  its  sap,  weakens  it,  deadens  it.  For 
when  we  have  stripped  this  conception  of  education 
of  its  mythological  exterior,  there  yet  remains  a  clearly 
religious  and  realistic  thought,  which  is  professed  with 
firm  adhesion  of  the  mind  and  complete  devotion  of  the 
soul,  as  the  inviolable  norm  of  the  whole  activity 
which  pertains  to  the  object  of  this  norm  itself.  Let 
us,  for  example,  consider  what  is  presupposed  by  the 
doctrine  of  methods,  the  so-called  methodology,  which  is 
an  important  part  of  didactics,  and  a  very  considerable 
section  in  the  whole  field  of  pedagogics.  The  doctrine 
of  methods  comprises  a  general  treatment,  which  cor- 
responds to  what  we  called  the  Mother-Science,  and 
a  particular  treatment  for  the  individual  sciences. 
There  is  methodology  of  learning  in  general,  and  there 
are  methodics  for  the  several  disciplines,  or  at  least 
for  each  group  of  disciplines,  into  which  learning  is 
divided  and  subdivided  in  accordance  with  the  logical 
processes  adopted  in  any  particular  case,  or  in  accord- 
ance with  the  objects  of  these  disciplines.  To  each 
method  of  knowing,  considered  in  itself,  corresponds  a 
teaching  method,  so  that  there  is  one  general  didactic 
method,  and  many  special  ones  by  which  the  general 
method  is  to  be  applied. 

But  what  is  the  method  of  a  science  if  not  the  logical 
scheme  or  the  form  of  a  certain  scientific  knowledge? 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  147 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  what  can  be  known  as  to  the 
form  of  anything,  unless  we  have  the  thing  itself  be- 
fore us  in  its  form  and  with  its  contents?  In  order 
to  define  the  form  of  a  science,  and  say,  for  example, 
that  it  is  deductive  in  mathematics  and  inductive  in 
chemistry,  we  must  first  presuppose  the  existence  of 
these  sciences  themselves.  But  in  them  form  is  never 
anything  indifferent  to  content;  it  is  the  form  of  that 
content.  This  is  made  clear  if  we  consider  the  method- 
ologies which  logicians  presume  to  define  in  the  ab- 
stract, and  with  no  regard  to  the  determined  content 
of  the  corresponding  sciences.  We  notice  that  they  are 
able  to  present  a  successful  exposition  and  formulation 
only  by  fixing  the  meaning  of  each  formula  by  the  use 
of  examples,  thereby  passing  from  the  abstract  to  the 
concrete,  and  showing  the  method  to  be  within  the 
concrete  knowing  out  of  which  logic  presumes  to  ex- 
tract it.  In  the  same  way  every  philosophical  system 
has  its  method;  but  whenever  criticism  has  endeavoured 
to  fix  abstractly  the  method  of  a  system,  in  order  then 
to  show  how  it  has  been  applied  in  the  construction 
of  the  system  itself,  it  has  been  forced  in  every  case 
to  admit  that  the  method  already  contained  the  system 
within  itself,  that  it  was  the  system  itself.  So  that 
it  would  have  no  value  whatsoever,  it  could  not  even 
be  grasped  by  thought  in  its  particular  determinate- 
ness,  if  it  were  not  presented  as  the  natural  form  of 
that  precise  thought. 


148  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

No  harmful  results  would  follow,  if  this  assumption 
merely  implied  the  accepting  of  science  and  methods 
as  existing  by  themselves  previous  to  the  learning  of 
science  by  means  of  its  respective  method;  if  it  re- 
sulted merely  in  the  failure  to  recognise  the  impossi- 
bility of  conceiving  science  and  methods  as  existing 
outside  of  the  human  mind  where  they  actually  do  live 
and  exist.  If  this  were  all,  we  should  merely  take 
notice  of  it  as  a  speculative  error  which  affected  only 
the  solution  of  the  particular  problem  in  which  it  ap- 
peared. But  in  the  Hfe  of  thought,  where  everything 
is  united  and  connected  in  an  organic  system,  every 
point  of  which  is  in  relation  to  every  other  point,  there 
is  no  error  limited  to  a  single  problem;  its  effects  are 
felt  in  the  whole  system,  and  tliey  react  on  thought  as 
a  whole.  And  since  thought  is  activity  itself, — life's 
drama,  as  we  called  it, — every  error  infects  the  entire 
life.  Let  us  then  consider  the  consequences  of  this 
realistic  conception  of  methodology. 

Science,  we  are  told,  in  its  abstract  objectivity  is 
one,  immutable,  unaltered:  it  is  removed  from  the 
danger  of  error  and  of  human  fallibility,  and  protected 
from  the  alternate  succession  of  ignorance  and  dis- 
covery; incapable  therefore  of  progressing  and  of  de- 
veloping because  it  was  complete  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, and  is  eternally  perfect.  But  such  a  Science  is 
quite  different  from  the  one  which  grows  in  the  life 
of  culture,  and  is  the  free  formation  of  the  human  per- 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  149 

sonality.  This  one  is  ever  changing,  always  admitting 
all  possible  transformations,  different  from  individual 
to  individual,  and  different  also  in  the  mind  of  the 
same  person.  It  lives  only  on  condition  that  it  never 
fix  itself,  that  it  never  crystallise,  that  it  place  no 
limits  to  its  development;  it  continues  to  be  in  virtue 
of  its  power  to  grow,  to  modify  itself,  to  integrate  itself 
and  incessantly  to  develop.  Science  as  culture,  as  per- 
sonality, is  free,  perennially  becoming,  stirred  by 
ethical  impulses,  multiple,  varied.  If  we  fix  the  method, 
it  indicates  that  we  are  dealing  with  science  realistically 
considered  as  pre-existing,  and  we  can  therefore  have 
only  one  sole,  definite,  immutable  method, — one  for 
everybody,  and  devoid  of  freedom,  not  susceptible  of 
development,  refractory  to  all  moral  evaluation. 
We  should  have  then  a  rigid  law  of  the  spirit,  as  com- 
pelling as  the  laws  of  nature.  But  by  obedience  to 
such  a  principle,  the  spirit  could  not  affirm  itself:  such 
compliance  is  surrender  and  abdication,  not  the  reali- 
sation of  some  good.  The  most  that  could  be  said  of 
it  is  that  perhaps  it  prevents  or  annuls  an  evil  which 
alienates  us  from  a  primitive  good  which  is  not  ours, 
and  not  being  ours  cannot  truly  be  good. 

A  fixed  method  forces  the  spirit  into  this  hopeless 
dilemma:  (i)  Either  refuse  to  submit,  and  thus  save 
life  at  the  cost  of  all  that  makes  life  worth  living — 
propter  vitam  vivendi  perdere  cans  as  (which  evidently 
would  be  the  case,  if  we  consider  that  the  spirit  lives 


I50  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

solely  on  condition  that  it  recognise  no  pre-established 
laws,  that  it  be  free  from  the  bondage  of  nature,  that  it 
create  its  own  law,  its  own  world,  freely;  and  that,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  cause  of  living,  what  constitutes 
the  worth  of  life,  is  that  enhancement  of  the  spirit's 
reality  which  realises  itself  in  science,  and  therefore 
in  the  method  of  science). 

(2)  Or  else  submit,  and  kill  life  in  the  effort  to  save 
its  worth — propter  causas  vivendi  perdere  vitam 
(which  is  absurd;  for  what  is  the  worth  of  life  if  there 
is  no  life?). 

However  that  may  be,  the  t5TDe  of  education  that 
presupposes  a  certain  ideal  of  knowledge  previously 
constituted  and  ready  to  be  imparted  by  the  teacher 
to  the  pupil  in  conformity  with  some  suitable  method, 
must  follow  a  method,  a  unique  one — the  method  of 
science,  and  therefore  of  the  teacher,  and  therefore  also 
of  the  pupil,  whether  the  latter  is  capable  of  it  or  not. 
For  it  is  tacitly  assumed  that  science  =  method;  sci- 
ence =  teacher;  science  =  pupil.  On  the  strength 
of  these  equations  the  common  term  "science"  should 
suffice  to  identify  the  first  method,  which  is  the  one  of 
science  in  itself,  with  the  last,  which  is  the  method  of 
science  to  be  mastered  by  the  pupil.  But  the  above 
series  of  equations  is  false,  because,  admitting  the  first, 
the  one  namely  on  the  basis  of  which  we  are  now  dis- 
cussing, neither  the  second  nor  the  third  is  possible 
without  passing  from  realistic  to  idealistic  science, — 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  151 

two  very  different  things,  as  I  have  shown.  Even  if 
we  leave  the  teacher  out  of  consideration,  we  shall 
have  to  remember  that  the  pupil  learns  a  science  by 
making  it  his  own, — a  fallible  science,  which  he  may 
understand  up  to  a  certain  point  and  no  further.  It 
will  be  one  of  the  many  sciences  which  have  no  one 
given  method,  but  many  of  them,  and  the  pupil  can  only 
avoid  appropriating,  individualising,  sub jecti vising  sci- 
ence by  following  that  way  which  is  very  broad,  very 
easy,  and,  alas,  only  too  well  beaten, — the  royal  road 
of  non-learning,  which  is  diligently  upkept  by  all  the 
schools  which  have  to  teach  precise,  well-defined  sci- 
ence, and  have  a  pre-established  method  by  which  to 
teach  it. 

But,  it  might  be  objected,  if  science,  realistically 
conceived,  is  a  fictitious  entity  in  no  way  correspond- 
ing to  reality,  how  is  it  possible  to  have  a  method 
which  by  its  uniqueness  and  definiteness  effectively 
corresponds  to  the  unalterable  unity  of  this  non-exist- 
ent science?  And  what  teacher  would  ever  arbitrarily 
impose  on  his  students  such  an  abstract  and  mechani- 
cal method?  This  is  true  enough;  but  man  learns  to 
compromise  with  all  deities,  Science  included.  This 
divinity,  in  order  somehow  to  exist,  must  assume  a  few 
human  traits  without  however  renouncing  her  divine 
prerogatives.  The  fact  that  Apollo  held  no  communion 
with  the  Pythian  priestess  did  not  remove  the  oracular 
sanctity  from  the  Delphic  response.     For  man  knows 


152  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

no  deity  other  than  the  one  which  he  is  capable  of  con- 
ceiving with  his  soul,  just  as  he  knows  no  other  red 
besides  the  one  which  he  sees  with  his  own  eyes. 

Science,  which  he  considers  as  an  object  existing  in 
itself,  outside  of  his  and  other  human  minds,  and 
therefore  endowed  with  absolute  validity  in  all  its 
branches  and  in  the  articulations  of  these  branches,  is 
nothing  but  the  science  which  he  knows.  And  he 
knows  it  because  he  has  constructed  it  in  the  form  in 
which  he  knows  it:  jingit  creditique.  But  this  absence 
of  consciousness  from  the  constructing,  and  the  con- 
sequent faith  in  the  realistic  value  of  science,  deter- 
mine the  positions  and  the  doctrines  which  produce 
the  consequences  I  have  deplored.  For  he  who  es- 
tablishes a  school  and  enacts  its  regulations  takes  as 
a  model  his  own  science,  without  at  all  being  aware 
that  it  is  only  his  own.  It  becomes  therefore  the 
content  of  the  institution  and  determines  its  method. 
But  a  teacher  who  does  not  feel  inclined  to  teach  that 
given  science  and  to  adopt  that  special  method  creates 
his  own  ideal,  which  is  but  the  projection  of  his  per- 
sonal culture;  and  unable  to  account  critically  for 
the  intrinsic  connection  existing  between  his  ideal  and 
his  personality,  he  too  fingit  creditique.  He  believes 
that  the  school  authority  has  erred,  and  that  Science, 
as  he  understands  it,  must  be  kept  distinct  from  the 
official  doctrines.  But  in  his  mind  his  science  is  not 
his  own.    It  is,  he  is  confident,  that  Sovereign  Science 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  153 

which  by  his  method  and  through  his  cult  must  en- 
lighten the  school  over  which  he  rules.  And  so  at  the 
point  of  arrival  where  the  realistic  conception  of 
methods  must  work,  it  is  found  to  be  effective  not- 
withstanding the  rebuffs  of  reality,  and  it  works.  It 
works  and  it  acts  in  the  only  way  that  it  is  possible 
for  it  to  act,  namely,  by  going  amiss.  It  fails  and 
will  always  continue  to  fail,  not  so  much  because  every 
pupil  has  his  own  personality  and  will  have  his  own 
particular  culture  with  its  corresponding  method,  but 
especially  because  whatever  the  number  of  the  pupils 
in  a  school,  the  human  mind  knows  of  no  culture 
which  is  not  also  its  own  free  development,  its  autono- 
mous ethical  becoming.  A  science,  which  is  supposed 
to  exist  before  the  spirit,  becomes  a  thing,  and  will 
never  again  be  able  to  trace  its  way  back  to  the  spirit. 
By  presupposing  science,  teachers  materialise  the  cul- 
ture in  whose  development  education  consists;  and  this 
materiality  of  a  culture  known  to  teachers  renders  im- 
possible that  other  culture  which  is  unknown  to  teach- 
ers, which  is  going  to  be  not  theirs,  but  the  pupils', 
for  whom  they  work  and  in  whose  behalf  the  school 
was  instituted. 

Methods,  programmes,  and  manuals  most  conspicu- 
ously reveal  the  realistic  prejudices  of  school  tech- 
nique; and  against  these  educators  should  constantly 
be  on  their  guard.  For  these  prejudices  have,  as  Vico 
would  put  it,  an  eternal  motive,  which  at  times  seems 


154  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

to  be  definitely  uprooted  and  completely  done  away 
with,  only  to  reappear,  alas!  in  a  different  form  and 
with  an  ever  renewed  lease  of  life.     The  motive  is  the 
following:  The  school  is  created  when  people  are  con- 
scious of  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  already  at- 
tained,   well    defined,    and    recognised    as    valuable. 
Likewise  man's  value  socially  is  estimated  on  the  work 
done,  and  it  is  on  the  basis  of  this  finished  work  that  he 
is  credited  with  the  acquisition  of  a  certain  personality. 
This  is  assuredly  no  longer  a  becoming  but  a  being; 
an  existent  thing,  already  realised,  which,  though  a 
contradiction  in  terms  for  those  of  us  who  have  mas- 
tered the  concept  of  the  attributes  of  the  spirit,  is  not 
thereby  condemned  as  accidental  and  disposed  of  once 
for  all.     For  it  is  also  true  that  culture,  personality, 
science, — spiritual  reality  in  short, — is  a  reality,  and 
true  it  is  that  when  we  know  it,  we  know  it  as  already 
realised.     We  may  indeed  have  a  very  keen  and  lively 
sentiment  of  the  subjectivity,  and  inwardness,  and  new- 
ness or  originality  of  our  culture,  in  which,  for  example, 
Dante,  Dante  himself,  is  our  Dante,  is  "We."     But 
yet  this  "We"  looms  before  us  as  a  truth  which  trans- 
cends our  particular  "we."    It  is  truth;  it  is  science. 
And  before  this  divine  Truth,  before  this  Science,  we 
too  fall  on  our  knees,  because  it  is  no  longer  a  mythol- 
ogy, but — our  experience,  our  life. 

Thus  we  think;  thus,  spiritually,  we  live.    I  medi- 
tate and  inquire  into  the  mystery  of  the  universe  un- 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  155 

ceasingly;  but  in  the  background  of  my  inquiry,  from 
time  to  time  a  solution  appears,  a  discovery  which 
urges  my  exploring  mind  onward.  Mystery  itself  is 
not  mystery  unless  it  be  known  as  such,  and  then 
it  becomes  knowledge.  Inquiry  is  therefore  at  once 
a  research  and  a  discovery.  And  this  untiring  ac- 
tivity, which  knows  neither  sleep  nor  rest,  is  mir- 
rored before  its  own  eyes  and  lives  in  the  fond  contem- 
plation of  its  reflected  image,  which  image  in  its 
objectivity  appears  to  it  as  fixed  as  it,  the  activity, 
is  mobile.  And  no  man  ever  felt  so  keenly  the  humil- 
ity and  meanness  of  his  powers,  no  one  ever  presumed 
so  little  of  himself,  that  he  could  not  yet  be  drawn  by 
his  own  nature  to  idolise  himself,  to  see  himself  before 
himself,  exactly  as  he  is,  as  what  he  cannot  but  be. 
And  on  the  other  hand  we  cannot  but  affirm  our  im- 
mortal faith  in  the  absolute  truth  of  the  ideals  which 
impose  upon  us  sentiments  of  humility. 

The  error  which  we  must  victoriously  contend 
against  is  not  this  ingenuous  and  unconquered  faith  in 
the  objectivity  of  thought  (which  is  also  the  objectivity 
of  all  things).  What  we  must  fight  against  is  mental 
torpor  and  the  sloth  of  the  heart,  which  induce  us  to 
stop  in  front  of  the  object  as  soon  as  we  get  it.  A 
deplorable  failing  indeed,  since  the  object  is  lost  in 
the  very  act  by  which  we  grasp  it,  and  we  must  again 
resume  our  work  and  toil  some  more  in  order  to  attain 
it  again.     For  the  object,  in  short,  does  exist,  but  in 


156  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

the  subject;  and  in  order  to  be  a  living  and  real  object 
it  must  live  on  the  life  itself  of  the  subject. 

A  textbook  is  a  textbook:  when  it  was  written,  and  if 
its  author  was  capable  of  thinking  and  of  living  in  his 
thought,  it  too  was  a  living  thing;  and  a  living  thing, 
that  is,  spirit,  it  will  continue  to  be  for  the  instructor 
who  does  not  through  indolence  allow  himself  to  be- 
lieve that  all  the  thinking  demanded  by  the  subject  was 
done  once  for  all  by  the  author  of  the  manual.  For 
the  manual,  as  a  book  intended  for  the  teacher,  meant 
to  be  constantly  awakened  by  teachers  to  an  ever 
quickened  life,  the  life  of  the  spirit,  can  only  be  what 
the  instructor  makes  it.  He,  therefore,  must  have  cul- 
ture enough  to  read  it  as  his  book;  he  must  be  able  to 
restore  it  to  life,  to  re-create  it  by  the  living  process 
of  his  personal  thought.  This  done,  he  will  have  done 
but  one-half  of  the  work  needed  to  transform  himself 
from  a  reader  into  a  teacher.  For  his  reading  must 
lead  up  to  the  reading  of  the  pupils;  and  they  ought 
not  to  be  confronted  with  the  finished  product  of  a 
culture  turned  out,  all  ready-made  by  the  mechanism 
of  the  handbook.  So  that  we  should  now  complete 
our  previous  statement,  and  say  that  the  teacher  re- 
creates the  book  when  he  revives  it  in  the  mind  of  the 
one  for  whom  the  book  was  written;  when  author, 
teacher,  and  pupil  constitute  but  one  single  spirit, 
whose  life  animates  and  inwardly  vivifies  the  manual, 
which  therefore  ought  not  to  be  called,  as  it  is,  a 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  157 

hand-hook,  but  a  spiritual  guide  for  the  mind.  Un- 
fortunately the  oft-deplored  indolence  which  freezes 
and  stiffens  spiritual  life  fastens  the  books  to  the  hands 
of  the  teacher  first,  and  then  to  those  of  the  pupils. 

Teachers  should  carefully  watch  themselves.  If  the 
book  begins  to  feel  heavy  in  their  hands,  it  is  a  sign 
that  it  is  becoming  a  burden  on  the  pupils'  minds.  It 
will  end  by  stifling  their  mental  life,  unless  its  oppres- 
sive dulness  is  dispelled  by  the  reawakened  conscious- 
ness of  the  instructor.  Teachers  should  never  for  an 
instant  become  remiss  in  their  loving  solicitude  for 
their  school.  When  their  book,  the  book  they  selected 
for  their  pupils,  as  the  means  of  imparting  the  culture 
for  which  the  school  stands,  ceases  to  be  the  pupils' 
book,  cherished  by  them  as  a  thing  of  their  own,  in- 
timately bound  up  with  their  persons,  then  it  is  high 
time  to  throw  it  away.  For  the  moment  a  book  loses 
its  power  to  attract  it  instantly  begins  to  repel.  It 
then  becomes  an  instrument  of  torture  and  a  menace 
for  the  life  of  the  youthful  minds  entrusted  to  the 
teachers'  care. 

Dictionaries  and  grammars  go  side  by  side  with 
handbooks, — instruments  of  culture  that  are  only  too 
often  converted  into  engines  of  torture.  The  abuse 
of  these  books,  especially  noticeable  in  the  secondary 
schools,  is  not  limited  to  them,  but  is  infecting  primary 
instruction  too,  and  teachers  should  know  what  such 
books  are,  and  be  enlightened  as  to  their  limitations. 


158  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

Otherwise   the  dictionary  becomes   the  cemetery  of 
speech,  and  grammar  the  annexed  dissecting  room.     A 
lexicon  is  a  burial  ground  for  the  mortal  remains  of 
those  living  beings  which  we  call  human  words,  each  one 
of  which  always  lives  in  a  context,  not  because  it  is  there 
in  bodily  company,  in  the  society  of  other  words,  but 
because  in  every  context  it  has  a  special  signification, 
being  the  form  of  a  precise  thought  or  state  of  mind, 
as  we  may  wish  to  call  it.     A  word  need  not  be  joined 
to  other  words  to  form  that  complex  which  gramma- 
rians call  a  sentence.     It  may  stand  alone,  all  by  itself, 
and  constitute  a  discourse,  and  express  a  thought,  even 
a  very  great  thought.    The  "fiat"  of  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis is  an  example.     What  is  requisite  is  that  the  word, 
whether  by  itself  or  with  others,  should  adhere  to  the 
personality,  to  the  spiritual  situation,  and  be  the  actual 
expression  of  a  soul.     When  joined  to  the  soul  a  word, 
which  materially  is  identical  with  countless  other  words 
uttered  by  other  souls,  and  with  the  peculiar  accents 
of  the  respective  personalities,  reveals  its  particular 
expression,  is  a  particular  word  not  to  be  ever  com- 
pared with  any  of  those  countless  ones   materially 
identical  with  it.    The  biblical  "fiat"  repeated  by  men 
who  feel  within  them  the  almighty  Word  of  the  Crea- 
tor, is  constantly  taking  on  new  shades  of  meaning,  is 
always  reinforced  by  richer  tones,  and  will  always 
continue  to  do  so,  as  a  result  of  the  numerous  ways  that 
men  have  of  picturing  to  themselves  the  deity,  and  in 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  159 

accordance  with  the  variety  of  doctrines,  phantasies, 
and  sentiments,  or  whatever  other  forms  of  activity 
may  converge  into  the  expression  of  a  person's  spiritual 
life.  So  that  if,  abstractly  considered,  it  is  the  word 
that  we  read,  always  the  same,  in  the  sublime  passage 
of  Genesis,  in  reality  it  lives  in  an  infinite  number  of 
forms,  as  though  an  infinite  number  of  words. 

But  in  dictionaries,  words  are  sundered  from  the 
minds,  detached  from  the  context,  soulless  and  dead. 
A  good  lexicon — and  those  that  are  put  in  the  hands 
of  pupils  are  seldom  satisfactory — should  always  in 
some  way  restore  the  word  to  the  natural  context,  en- 
chase it,  so  to  speak,  in  the  jewel  from  which  it  was 
torn.  It  should  never  presume  to  give  meanings  of 
abstracted  words,  but  ought  to  point  them  out  as  they 
exist  historically  in  the  authors  who  are  deemed  worthy 
representatives  of  the  language  or  of  the  literature. 
Dictionaries  so  compiled  do  away  partly  with  the  ob- 
jectionable abstractness,  but  are  yet  unable  to  conjure 
the  dead  from  their  tombs.  Their  weakness  and  in- 
sufficiency lie  first  of  all  in  the  fact  that  the  true  context 
of  a  word,  in  which  it  lives  concretely,  and  from  which 
therefore  it  draws  its  meaning,  is  in  reality  not  the 
brief  phrase,  which  is  all  that  historical  dictionaries 
can  quote,  but  rather  the  entire  work  of  the  author 
from  which  the  quoted  phrase  derives  whatever  colours 
it  may  possess  and  its  own  peculiar  shade.  And  the 
whole  work  in  turn  can  be  understood  only  in  con- 


i6o  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

nection  with  the  boundless  historical  environments  out 
of  which  it  emerges,  in  which  it  lives,  and  where  its 
thoughts  receive  their  peculiar  colouring  and  their  spe- 
cial significance.  The  insufficiency  of  the  diction- 
ary comes  out  even  more  clearly  from  another  and 
more  important  consideration.  An  historical  diction- 
ary of  the  Italian  language  will,  for  example,  tell  us 
how  Machiavelli  used  the  word  "virtue"  (virtù),  and 
by  the  examples  adduced  we  should  see  or  perhaps  sur- 
mise the  meaning  of  that  word,  the  knowledge  of  which 
is  not  just  mere  erudition,  in  as  much  as  in  the  mind 
of  the  cultured  reader  the  thought  of  Machiavelli  is 
restored  to  life,  and  with  it  the  concept  which  he  was 
wont  to  express  by  the  term  "virtue."  But  idealis- 
tically  speaking,  is  this  word  Machiavelli's  or  is  it 
ours, — a  word  belonging  to  us  who  are  inquiring  into 
his  thoughts?  It  is  ours,  by  all  means,  and  for  the 
reason  that  it  belongs  to  our  Machiavelli.  Unless  we 
have  then  within  us  this  our  Machiavelli,  it  is  useless 
for  us  to  search  for  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  dic- 
tionary. In  it  surely  we  may  find  it,  but  as  a  dead 
body  to  be  resurrected  only  by  remembering  that  its 
life  is  not  in  the  printed  page  but  in  us,  and  only  in 
us.  In  oui  life  everything  will  have  to  be  resuscitated 
that  is  to  become  part  of  our  culture. 

And  the  same  applies  to  grammars.  As  people  con- 
ceive them  and  use  them,  what  are  they  if  not  a 
schematic  arrangement  of  the  forms  by  which  words 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  i6i 

are  joined  so  as  to  constitute  speech?  And  how  can  we 
cut  the  discourse  to  the  quick  and  extract  these 
schemes,  without  at  the  same  time  destroying  its  life? 
The  scheme  is  a  "part  of  speech,"  and  it  is  a  rule. 
Grammar  is  a  series  of  rules  regarding  the  parts  of 
speech,  considered  singly  and  collectively.  But  the 
grammatical  scheme — part  of  speech  or  rule — abstracts 
a  generic  form  from  the  particular  expression  in  such 
a  way  that  the  paradigm  of  a  conjugation,  for  example, 
shall  be  the  conjugation  of  many  verbs  but  not  of  any 
determined  one.  The  rule  governing  the  use  of  the 
conditional  is  in  the  same  way  referred  to  every  verb 
which  expresses  a  conditional  act  or  occurrence,  but 
to  no  one  verb  in  a  peculiar  manner.  But  since  no 
speech  contains  a  verb  which  might  present  to  us  a 
verbal  form  which  is  not  also  the  form  of  a  determined 
verb,  nor  a  conditional  which  does  not  point  with  pre- 
cision to  the  action  or  occurrence  subordinated  to  a 
condition,  it  is  evident  that  the  scheme  places  before 
us,  not  the  living  and  concrete  body  of  the  speech,  but 
a  dissected  and  dead  part  of  this  body. 

I  shall  not  here  recall  the  controversies  occasioned  by 
the  difficulties  inherent  in  the  normative  character  ordi- 
narily attributed  to  grammatical  schemes.  I  shall 
simply  note  that  a  scheme  becomes  intelligible  only 
if  the  example  accompanies  it;  and  the  example  always 
turns  out  to  be  a  living  discourse,  within  which  there- 
fore we  meet  again  the  scheme,  but  liberated  from  the 


i62  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

presumed  abstractness  to  which  it  had  been  confined 
by  the  grammarian.     And  I  shall  merely  add  that  the 
grammatical  norm,  which  in  the  realistic  conception  of 
grammar  is  presented  as  a  rule,   anteceding  actual 
speech  both  in  time  and  ideally,  has  in  reality  no 
validity  whatsoever  excepting  as  a  law  internal  to  the 
speaking  itself,  which  brings  out  its  normative  force 
only  in  the  act  itself  of  speaking.     In  spite  of  this, 
however,  the  majority  of  people  consider  grammar  as 
an  antecedent  to  speech  and  to  thought,  and  therefore 
to  the  life  of  the  spirit.     It  appears  to  them  as  a  reef 
on  which  the  freedom  of  the  personality  must  be  driven 
in  the  course  of  its  becoming,  bearing  down  as  it  does 
on  a  past  which  is  believed  to  exist  beneath  the  horizon 
of  actuality  and  beyond  the  present  life  of  the  spirit. 
To  them  grammar  is  legislation  passed  by  former  writ- 
ers and  speakers,  prescribing  norms  for  those  who 
intend    to    use    the    same    language    in    the    future. 
Against  this  myth,  and  the  consequent  idol  of  grammar 
worshipped  as  a  thing  which  has  not  only  the  right,  but 
the  means  also,  of  controlling  and  oppressing  the  cre- 
ative spontaneity  of  speech,  teachers  should  be  con- 
stantly on  their  guard,  if  they  feel  bound  to  respect  and 
protect  the  spirituality  of  culture 

Neither  grammar  then,  nor  rhetoric,  nor  any  kind 
of  misguided  preceptive  teaching  should  be  allowed  to 
introduce  into  the  school  the  menace  of  realism  which 
lurks  naturally  in  the  shadow  of  all  prescriptive  sys- 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  163 

terns.  A  precept  is  a  mere  historical  indication,  a 
sign  which  points  to  something  that  was  done  as  to 
something  that  had  to  be  done  then  and  is  to  be  done 
now.  It  was  done  and  it  was  thought  that  it  had  to 
be  done.  But  what  was  done  cannot  be  done  over 
again,  and  what  was  thought  cannot  again  be  thought. 
Life  knows  no  past  other  than  the  one  which  it  con- 
tains within  its  living  present.  The  precept  has  no 
value  excepting  as  that  precept  which  we  in  every 
single  instance  intuit,  and  which  we  must  intuit,  being 
spiritually  alive  and  free,  as  the  peculiar  form  of  our 
thought,  of  our  speaking,  of  our  doing,  of  our  being, 
in  short,  which  is  our  becoming.  If  we  look  upon  a 
precept  as  transcending  this  becoming,  and  as  an  ante- 
cedent to  it,  we  misapprehend  and  therefore  imperil 
our  indwelling  freedom,  which  for  us  now  ought  to 
mean  not  simply  the  failure  to  foster  the  growth  of  the 
spirit,  but  a  deliberate  attempt  to  hinder  and  thwart 
its  development  and  to  blight  the  function  of  culture. 
One  more  prejudice  of  those  imputed  to  realistic 
instruction  must  still  be  pointed  out,  and  it  will  be  the 
last.  It  is  one  of  those  time-worn  devices  whose  his- 
tory, extending  over  a  thousand  years,  reflects  the  en- 
tire life  of  the  school — the  composition.  Teachers 
expect  and  demand  that  a  predetermined  and  definite 
theme,  as  a  nucleus  of  a  thought  organism,  as  leit- 
motij,  so  to  speak,  of  a  work  of  art,  as  a  ruling  prin- 
ciple for  moral  or  speculative  reflections,  be  developed 


i64  THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM 

by  pupils  who  may  yet  have  never  given  the  topic  a 
single  thought,  who  may  possibly  be  not  at  all  attuned 
to  that  definite  spiritual  vibration,  who  may  in  short 
be  quite  removed  from  the  line  along  which  the  theme 
should  be  developed.  In  the  lower  grades  the  line 
itself  is  marked,  the  entire  contour  is  given,  and  the 
pupil's  mind  is  arbitrarily  encompassed  within  this 
fixed  outline.  These  methods  are  now  fortunately 
applied  with  diminished  rigour  and  less  crudely  than 
before.  But  the  fact  remains  that  in  all  classes  the 
teacher  either  assigns  a  theme  at  random,  picking  a 
topic  from  a  casual  reading  or  from  among  the  whims 
of  his  rambling  fancy,  or  else  he  conscientiously  and 
carefully  studies  the  possibilities  of  a  subject,  and 
develops  it  to  a  certain  extent  before  he  assigns  it;  so 
that  he  naturally  expects  the  pupil's  treatment  to  con- 
form to  his  own  delineation;  and  he  values  the  com- 
position in  proportion  as  it  approaches  the  rough  draft 
which  he  had  previously  sketched  in  his  mind. 

Here  too,  as  elsewhere,  we  encounter  the  difficulty 
of  a  thought  which  is  presupposed  to  thinking,  which 
therefore  binds  it,  strains  it  and  racks  it  out  of  its 
healthy  and  fruitful  growth;  for  thought  cannot  live 
without  freedom.  The  dangers  are  many  that  beset 
us  in  the  practice  of  theme-composition,  and  not  all 
of  them  of  a  merely  intellectual  character.  There 
is  no  intellectual  deficiency  which  is  not  also  at  the 
same  time  a  moral  blemish;  and  a  course  of  exercises, 


THE  BIAS  OF  REALISM  165 

such  as  we  have  considered,  not  only  jeopardises  the 
formation  of  the  intelligence  by  urging  it  along  a  line 
of  false  and  empty  artificiality  to  the  postiche  and  the 
applique,  but  it  also,  and  far  more  seriously,  threatens 
the  moral  character  of  the  pupils  in  that  it  beguiles 
them  into  a  sinful  familiarity  with  insincerity,  which 
might  perhaps  become  downright  cheating. 

Composition  however  in  itself  is  not  taboo  for  the 
idealist.  Like  grammar  and  every  other  instrument 
of  the  teaching  profession  it  must  be  converted  from 
the  abstract  to  the  concrete.  We  should  never  demand 
of  the  pupil  an  inventiveness  beyond  his  powers,  never 
unfairly  expect  of  his  mind  what  it  cannot  yet  give. 
The  boy  must  not  be  given  a  subject  drawn  from  a 
world  with  which  he  is  unfamiliar.  But  when  the  sub- 
ject springs  naturally  from  the  pupil's  own  soul,  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  school,  and  as  a  part  of  the  spirit- 
ual life  which  unites  him  to  his  teacher  and  to  his 
classmates,  then  composition,  hke  every  other  element 
of  a  freely  developing  culture,  is  a  creation  and  an 
unfailing  progress.  For  whatever  has  been  frozen  by 
the  chill  of  realism,  and  has  been  consequently  made 
unfit  for  the  life  of  the  spirit,  may  again  be  revived  in 
the  warmth  of  the  living  intelligence  of  the  concrete, 
and  be  thence  idealistically  fused  with  the  spontaneous 
and  vigorous  current  of  spiritual  reality. 


CHAPTER  Vili 

THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

Having  exemplified  the  prejudices  of  realism  in  the 
phases  that  are  most  harmful  to  education,  I  shall  now 
proceed  to  discuss  the  fundamental  corollary  of  the 
idealistic  thesis  as  an  effective  remedy  against  the  rav- 
ages of  realism.  For,  as  I  have  already  shown,  the 
realistic  conception  of  life  and  culture  is  by  no  means 
a  minor  error  which  could  be  corrected  as  soon  as  dis- 
covered. Originating  in  a  primitive  tendency  which 
impels  the  human  spirit  on  through  a  realistic  phase 
before  it  can  freely  emerge  into  the  loftier  conscious- 
ness of  self  and  power  (which  is  the  conquest  of  ideal- 
ism), this  error  again  and  again  crops  out  of  even  the 
most  convinced  anti-realistic  consciousness.  So  that 
if  at  any  moment  our  higher  reflection  slackens  its 
vigilance,  the  error  creeps  back  into  the  midst  of  our 
ideas,  gains  control  of  our  intelligence,  and  resumes 
its  former  sway  over  thought.  It  is  not  sufficient 
then  to  become  aware  of  the  faults  of  realism  and  of  the 
prejudices  in  which  it  is  mirrored;  we  must,  in  addi- 
tion to  all  this,  strengthen  in  our  minds  the  intuition 
of  the  spirituality  of  culture,  render  it  more  subtle, 
more  accurate,  more  certain,  and  bring  to  it  the  energy 

166 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  167 

of  a  faith  which,  after  taking  possession  of  our  souls, 
shall  become  our  life's  character. 

We  must  therefore  look  intently  at  the  significance 
of  that  principle  which  identifies  culture  with  man's 
personality,  notice  its  most  important  consequences, 
and  set  these  up  as  the  laws  of  education,  since  by 
education  we  mean  the  creation  of  a  living  culture 
which  shall  be  the  life  of  the  human  mind.  The  first 
and  foremost  of  these  consequences,  the  direct  corol- 
lary of  our  proposition,  is  the  concept  of  the  Unity  of 
Education.  Though  often  referred  to,  it  has  not  yet 
been  attained  by  pedagogical  doctrines,  nor  has  it  been 
the  aim  of  the  work  of  teachers.  Neither  theory  nor 
practice — more  intimately  connected  than  is  ordinarily 
supposed — shows  as  yet  that  this  concept  is  under- 
stood and  adequately  appreciated.  It  is  opposed  with 
full  force  by  the  realistic  conception  which,  keeping 
man  distinct  from  his  culture,  and  materialising  this 
culture,  naturally  attributes  to  it,  and  to  education  in 
which  it  is  reflected,  that  multiplicity  and  fragmen- 
tariness  which  is  the  characteristic  of  things  mate- 
rial. 

This  scrappiness  of  culture  and  of  education  is  the 
error  on  which  all  the  prejudices  of  realistic  pedagogy 
are  grounded.  It  is  the  enemy  that  must  be  van- 
quished in  the  course  of  the  crusade  that  has  been 
preached  by  idealism  in  its  endeavour  to  liberate 
instruction  from  the  deadly  oppression  of  mechanism. 


i68  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

But  in  order  to  combat  this  foe  we  must  first  know  it: 
and  we  must  gain  a  clear  understanding  of  that  unity 
of  education  which  it  antagonises  with  uncompromising 
opposition. 

If  we  open  a  treatise  on  pedagogy  or  examine  a 
schedule  of  courses,  if  we  look  through  a  programme 
or  stop  to  consider  our  every-day  technical  terminol- 
ogy, we  cannot  help  noticing  that  education  is  broken 
up  by  divisions  and  subdivisions  ad  infinitum,  exactly 
as  though  it  were  a  material  object,  which  because 
material  possesses  infinite  divisibility.  Textbooks  tell 
us  that  education  is  (i)  physical,  (2)  intellectual,  (3) 
moral.  Then  narrowing  the  subject  down  to  one 
section,  the  intellectual,  which  for  good  reasons  has 
been  treated  more  carefully  and  sympathetically  by 
traditional  pedagogy,  we  find  some  such  subdivisions: 
artistic,  scientific,  literary,  philosophical,  religious,  etc. 
Again,  artistic  education  will  be  split  up  into  as  many 
sections  as  there  are  arts,  and  scientific  instruction  in 
the  same  way;  for  pedagogy  assigns  to  each  branch 
of  the  classification  its  corresponding  method  of  teach- 
ing. It  goes  without  saying  that  the  sciences  of  any 
given  branch  are  different  among  themselves,  and  the 
study  of  botany,  for  example,  is  not  the  study  of 
zoology.  And  there  are  as  many  forms  of  culture 
to  be  promoted  by  education  as  there  are  sciences; 
which  is  clearly  shown  by  school  announcements  assign- 
ing to  certain  years,  and  for  definite  days  and  hours, 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  169 

the  several  courses  of  the  curriculum,  that  is,  the  sev- 
eral educations. 

It  is  taken  for  granted  that  Education,  properly  so 
called,  will  result  from  the  ensemble  of  these  particular 
educations — physical,  intellectual,  moral,  etc., — each 
one  of  which  contributes  its  share  to  the  final  result, 
and  is  therefore  a  part  of  the  entire  education.  And 
each  field  produces  certain  peculiar  results  which  it 
would  be  idle  to  demand  of  another  section,  just  as 
we  never  expect  an  olive  grove  to  yield  a  crop  of 
peaches.  Every  part,  self-contained  and  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  rest,  absolutely  excludes  all  other  parts 
from  itself.  Therefore  the  subjects  taught  in  a  school 
are  numerous,  and  there  must  accordingly  be  special- 
ised teachers.  And  again  each  instructor  must  be 
careful  not  to  mix  up  the  several  parts  which  compose 
his  subject.  The  teacher  of  history,  for  example,  when 
he  takes  up  the  French  Revolution,  must  forget  the 
unification  of  Italy,  and  treat  each  event  in  order  and 
in  turn;  and  the  instructor  of  Italian  will  take  up  the 
history  of  literature  on  a  certain  day  of  the  week,  and 
devote  some  other  hour  to  the  study  of  the  individual 
works  themselves. 

So  also  we  never  fail  to  distinguish  and  carefully 
separate  the  two  parts  of  the  teacher's  work,  his  ability 
as  a  disciplinarian  and  his  skill  in  imparting  informa- 
tion, for  it  is  an  accepted  commonplace  of  school  tech- 
nique that  ability  to  teach  is  one  thing,  and  the  power 


170  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

to  maintain  discipline  is  another.  It  is  one  thing  to 
be  able  to  keep  the  class  attentive  to  the  discussion  of 
a  given  subject,  and  quite  another  to  treat  this  subject 
suitably  for  the  needs  and  attainments  of  the  pupils. 
Discipline  is  considered  thus  as  a  mere  threshold;  the 
real  teaching  comes  after.  For,  it  is  argued,  discipline 
has  no  cultural  content;  it  is  nothing  more  than  the 
spiritual  disposition  and  adaptation  which  should  pre- 
cede the  acquisition,  or  if  we  so  wish  to  call  it,  the 
development  of  real  culture, — a  disposition  which  is 
obtained  when  respect  for  the  authority  of  the  teacher 
is  ensured. 

The  recognition  of  that  authority  simply  means  the 
establishment  of  a  necessary  condition;  as  for  the  real 
work  of  education,  that  is  yet  to  come.  And  if  we 
should  stop  at  what  we  have  called  the  threshold,  we 
should  have  no  school  at  all.  There  are  teachers,  in 
fact,  who  keep  good  discipline,  but  who  are  yet  unable 
to  teach,  either  through  lack  of  culture  or  because  they 
are  deficient  in  methods. 

All  these  are  commonplaces  to  which  we  often  resort 
without  stopping  to  consider  their  validity.  And,  in 
truth,  it  is  because  of  this  lack  of  consideration  that 
we  are  able  to  use  them  without  noticing  their  absurdi- 
ties and  without  therefore  feeling  the  necessity  of 
emending  our  ways.  This  lack  of  reflection  resolves  it- 
self into  a  lack  of  precision  in  the  handling  of  these 
concepts.     They  are  formulated  without  much  rigour 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  171 

with  a  great  deal  of  elasticity,  and  in  the  spirit  of  com- 
promising with  that  truth  against  which  they  would 
otherwise  too  jarringiy  clash. 

First  of  all,  no  one  has  ever  conceived  the  possibility 
of  separating  discipline  from  education.  What  is  often 
done  is  to  distinguish  discipline  from  that  part  of  edu- 
cation which  is  called  instruction,  and  to  consider  the 
two  as  integrating  the  total  concept  of  education. 
Mention  is  often  made  of  the  educational  value  of  dis- 
cipline. But  this  kind  of  co-ordination  of  the  two 
forms  of  education — discipline  and  instruction — and 
their  subordination  to  the  generic  concept  of  education 
are  more  easily  formulated  than  comprehended.  For 
if  we  should  distinguish  them  simply  on  the  grounds 
that  one  is  the  necessary  antecedent  of  the  other,  we 
should  have  a  relationship  similar  to  that  which  con- 
nects any  part  of  instruction  with  the  part  which  must 
be  presupposed  before  it  as  an  antecedent  moment  in 
the  same  process  of  development.  But  the  relationship 
which  exists  between  any  two  parts  of  instruction  can- 
not serve  to  distinguish  from  instruction  a  thing  which 
is  different  from  it. 

We  might  wish,  perhaps,  to  consider  as  characteristic 
of  this  absolute  antecedence  the  establishment  of  the 
authority  without  which  teaching,  properly  so  called, 
cannot  begin.  But  the  objection  to  this  would  be  that 
every  moment  of  the  teaching  process  presupposes  a 
new  authority,  which  can  never  be  considered  as  defi- 


172  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

nitely  acquired,  which  is  constantly  being  imposed 
anew,  and  which  must  proceed  at  every  given  instance 
from  the  effective  spiritual  action  exercised  by  the 
teacher  upon  the  pupil.  In  other  words,  I  mean  to 
say  that  no  teacher  is  able  independently  of  the  merits 
of  his  teaching  to  maintain  discipHne  simply  and  solely 
on  the  strength  of  his  personal  prestige,  of  his  force  of 
character,  or  any  other  suitable  qualification.  For 
whoever  he  may  be,  and  whatever  the  power  by  which 
at  the  start  he  is  able  to  attract  the  attention  of  his 
pupils  and  to  keep  it  riveted  on  his  words,  the  teacher  as 
he  begins  to  impart  information  ceases  to  be  what  he 
was  immediately  before,  and  becomes  to  the  eyes  of 
his  pupils  an  ever  changing  individual, — bigger  or 
smaller,  stronger  or  weaker,  and  therefore  more  or  less 
v/orthy  of  that  attention  and  that  respect  of  which 
boys  are  capable  in  their  expectance  of  spiritual  light 
and  joy.  The  initial  presentation  is  nothing  more  than 
a  promise  and  an  anticipation.  In  the  course  of  teach- 
ing this  anticipation  must  not  be  disappointed,  this 
promise  must  be  constantly  fulfilled  and  more  than 
fulfilled  by  the  subsequent  developments.  The  teach- 
er's personality  as  revealed  at  the  beginning  must  be 
borne  out  by  all  that  he  does  in  the  course  of  the 
lesson.  Experience  confirms  this  view,  and  the  reason 
of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  doctrine  now  familiar  to  us 
of  the  spirit  that  never  is  definitely,  but  is  always  con- 
stituting itself,  always  becoming.    And  every  man  is 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  173 

esteemed  and  appreciated  on  the  strength  of  what  he 
shows  himself  to  be  at  any  given  moment,  and  in  virtue 
of  the  experience  which  we  continue  to  have  of  his 
being, — a  being  which  is  the  development  in  which  he 
realises  himself. 

So,  then,  discipline  is  never  enforced  definitely  and 
in  such  a  way  that  the  teacher  may  proceed  to  build 
on  it  as  on  a  firm  basis  without  any  further  concern. 
And  it  is  therefore  difficult  to  see  how  we  could  possibly 
sever  with  a  clean  cut  the  task  of  keeping  discipline 
from  the  duty  of  imparting  instruction. 

Nor  is  it  any  more  plausible  to  maintain  that  dis- 
cipline, though  it  may  not  chronologically  precede  in- 
struction, is  its  logical  antecedent,  in  the  sense  that 
there  are  at  every  instant  of  the  life  of  the  school  both 
discipline  and  instruction,  the  former  as  a  condition  of 
the  latter.  The  difficulty  here  is  that  if  we  assumed 
this,  we  ought  to  be  able  to  indicate  the  difference  be- 
tween the  condition  and  the  conditioned;  which  dif- 
ference, unless  we  rest  content  with  vague  words,  is 
not  forthcoming,  and  cannot  be  found.  I  maintain 
that  were  it  possible  for  the  teacher  definitely  to  en- 
throne, so  to  speak,  discipline  in  his  school,  all  his  work 
were  done.  He  would  have  fulfilled  his  entire  duty, 
acquitted  his  obligation,  and  achieved  the  results  of  his 
mission,  whether  we  look  upon  this  mission  in  the  com- 
plex of  its  development,  or  whether  we  consider  it 
ideally  in  the  instant  of  its  determined  act,  which  is  yet 


174  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

a  process  and  therefore  a  development.  For  what, 
in  fact,  is  discipline?  Is  it  established  authority? 
But  this  authority  is  the  whole  of  education.  For 
authority  cannot  be,  as  I  have  explained  before,  a  mere 
claim:  it  must  become  actual  in  the  effective  action 
performed  by  the  educating  personality,  and  this  action 
is  education.  And  when  this  education  consists,  for 
example,  in  the  imparting  of  a  rule  of  syntax,  education 
becomes  actual  when  the  pupil  really  apprehends  that 
rule  from  his  instructor  exactly  as  it  is  taught  to  him, 
and  thus  appropriates  the  teacher's  manner  of  think- 
ing and  his  intellectual  behaviour  on  that  special  sub- 
ject, and  acts  and  does  as  the  teacher  wants  him  to. 
And  from  the  point  of  view  of  discipline,  this  is  all 
we  want  at  that  moment. 

If  in  the  course  of  education,  considered  as  a  whole 
or  at  any  particular  moment  of  it,  we  should  separate 
discipline  from  instruction,  now  turning  our  attention 
to  the  one  and  now  to  the  other,  we  know  from  expe- 
rience that  we  should  never  get  anywhere.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  distinction  thrusts  itself  to  the  fore  only 
when  the  problem  of  discipline  is  erroneously  formu- 
lated by  treating  it  abstractly.  For  who  is  it  that 
worries  over  discipline  as  such,  and  as  though  it  were 
a  thing  different  from  teaching?  Who  is  it  that  looks 
upon  this  problem  as  an  insoluble  one?  Only  the 
teacher  who,  unable  to  maintain  discipline,  frets  over 
it  and  failing  to  discover  it  where  it  is  naturally  to  be 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  175 

found,  desperately  looks  for  it  where  it  is  not,  where 
it  could  not  possibly  be.  And  so  he  is  helplessly  per- 
turbed, like  the  man  who,  feeling  upon  himself  the 
concentrated  gaze  of  all  the  guests  seated  in  a  parlour, 
is  no  longer  able  to  walk  across  the  floor;  it  is  the 
same  difficulty  and  impediment  we  encounter  every 
time  we  try  to  watch  and  study  our  movements.  In 
the  same  way  the  spontaneous  outburst  of  eloquent 
sentiments  that  flow  from  the  fulness  of  our  hearts  is 
checked  by  the  endeavour  to  analyse  them,  to  study  the 
words — to  substitute  art  for  nature. 

The  real  teacher,  the  naturally  gifted  teacher,  never 
bothers  about  these  puzzling  questions  of  pedagogical 
discipline.  He  teaches  with  such  devotion;  he  is  so 
close  spiritually  to  his  pupils,  so  sympathetic  with 
their  views  ;  his  work  is  so  serious,  so  sincere,  so  eager, 
so  full  of  life,  that  he  is  never  compelled  to  face  a 
recalcitrant,  rebellious  personality  that  could  only  be 
reduced  by  resorting  to  the  peculiar  means  of  discipline. 
The  docility  of  the  pupils  in  the  eyes  of  the  able  teacher 
is  neither  an  antecedent  nor  a  consequent  of  his  teach- 
ings; it  is  an  aspect  of  it.  It  originates  with  the  very 
act  by  which  he  begins  to  teach,  and  ceases  with  the 
end  of  his  teaching.  Concretely,  the  discipline  which 
good  teachers  enforce  in  the  classroom  is  the  natural 
behaviour  of  the  spirit  which  adheres  to  itself  in  the 
seriousness  and  inwardness  of  its  own  work.  Dis- 
cipline, authority,  and  respect  for  authority  are  absent 


176  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

whenever  it  is  impossible  to  establish  that  unique  su- 
perior personality,  in  which  the  spiritual  life  of  the 
pupils  and  of  the  teachers  are  together  fused  and 
united.  Whenever  the  students  fail  to  find  their  ideal 
in  the  teacher;  when  they  are  disappointed  by  his 
aspect,  his  gaze,  his  words,  in  the  complex  concreteness 
of  his  spiritual  personality,  which  does  not  rise  to  the 
ideal  which  at  every  moment  is  present  in  their  ex- 
pectations, then  the  order  of  discipline  is  lacking.  But 
when  this  actual  unity  obtains — this  unity  which  is 
the  task  of  the  teacher,  and  the  aim  of  all  educatioi: 
— then  discipline,  authority,  and  respect  are  present 
as  never  failing  elements. 

This  pedagogical  problem  of  discipline  would  never 
have  arisen  if  immature  reflection  had  not  distinguished 
two  empirically  different  aspects  of  human  personality, 
the  practical  and  the  theoretical,  whereby  it  would 
appear  that  man,  when  he  does  things,  should  not  be 
considered  in  the  same  light  as  when  he  thinks  and 
understands,  knows  and  learns.  From  this  point  of 
view,  discipline  of  deportment  is  to  be  referred  to  the 
pupil  as  practical  spiritual  activity,  while  teaching  aims 
at  his  theoretic  activity.  The  former  should  guide  the 
pupil,  regulate  his  conduct  as  a  member  of  that  special 
community  which  we  call  the  school,  and  facilitate  the 
fulfilment  of  the  obligations  which  he  has  toward  the 
institution,  toward  his  fellow-pupils,  and  toward  him- 
self.   The  latter,  on  the  other  hand,  assuming  the  com- 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  177 

pletion  of  this  practical  edification,  proceeds  to  the 
mental  formation  of  the  personality,  considered  as 
progressive  acquirement  of  culture.  Discipline  in  this 
system  appears  to  be  the  morals  of  the  school.  I  use 
the  word  morals  in  a  very  broad  sense — just  as  moral- 
ity might  be  considered  as  the  discipline  of  society 
and  of  life  in  general.  For  everybody,  it  is  argued, 
distinguishes  between  the  character  of  man  and  his 
intelligence,  between  his  conduct  and  his  knowledge. 
The  two  terms  may  indeed  be  drawn  together,  but  they 
also  exist  quite  apart.  So  that  a  man  devoid  of  char- 
acter, or  possessed  with  an  indomitable  will  for  evil, 
may  nevertheless  be  extremely  learned  and  shrewd,  or 
as  subtle  as  the  serpent;  whereas  a  moral  man,  through 
lack  of  understanding,  may  become  the  sport  of  rogues, 
and  remain  illiterate,  devoid  of  all,  even  of  the  slightest 
accomplishments.  For  will  is  one  thing,  they  say,  and 
the  intellect  is  another. 

The  question  of  the  abstractness  of  discipline  impels 
us  now  to  examine  the  legitimacy  of  this  broader  dis- 
tinction, which  does  not  simply  concern  the  problems 
of  the  school,  but  extends  to  the  fundamental  principles 
of  the  philosophy  of  the  spirit.  Under  its  influence, 
contemporary  thought  attacks  all  the  surviving  forms 
of  this  ancient  distinction  between  will  and  intellect, 
which  rested  on  a  frankly  realistic  intuition  of  the 
world.  The  philosopher  who  crystallised  this  distinc- 
tion, and  fastened  it  so  hard  that  it  could  not  be  broken 


178  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

up  completely  in  the  course  of  all  subsequent  specu- 
lation, was  Aristotle.  A  thoroughgoing  realist,  like 
all  Greek  philosophers,  he  conceived  reality  as  some- 
thing external  and  antecedent  to  the  mind  which  thinks 
it  and  strives  to  know  it.  When  thought,  whose 
function  is  the  knowing  of  reality,  is  thus  placed  outside 
of  this  reality,  it  is  evident  that  the  knowledge  to  which 
it  aspired  never  could  have  been  an  activity  which  pro- 
duces reality.  It  was  accordingly  maintained  that 
knowledge  could  not  be  more  than  a  mere  survey,  a 
view  of  reality  (intuition,  theory),  almost  like  a  re- 
flected image,  totally  extrinsic  to  the  essence  of  the  real. 
But  since  it  was  evident  that  man  as  spiritual  activity 
does  produce  a  world  of  his  own,  for  which  he  is  praised 
if  it  is  deemed  good,  but  blamed  if  it  is  judged  bad, 
it  had  to  follow  that  there  were  two  distinct  aspects 
in  human  life  :  one  by  which  man  contemplates  reality, 
the  other  by  which  he  creates  his  own  world, — a  world, 
however,  which  is  but  a  transformation  of  the  true 
and  original  reality.  These  two  aspects  are  the  will 
and  the  intellect. 

It  should  not  now  be  necessary  to  criticise  this  con- 
cept of  a  reality  assumed  to  exist,  in  antecedence  to 
the  activity  of  the  spirit,  and  which  is  the  sole  support 
of  this  distinction  between  will  and  intellect.  We 
might  say  perhaps  that  though  everything  does  indeed 
depend  from  the  spirit,  and  though  all  is  spirit,  yet 
this  completely  spiritual  reality  is  on  one  hand  what 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  179 

is  produced,  the  realisation  of  new  realities  (will),  but 
on  the  other  hand  it  is  but  the  knowledge  of  its  own 
reality,  and  by  this  knowledge  gives  no  increment  to 
its  being.  However,  if  we  adopted  this  view,  we 
would  slip  back  to  the  position  we  abandoned  as  un- 
tenable, since  a  thought  which  propounds  the  problem 
of  its  essence  and  of  the  essence  of  the  reality  which 
it  cognises  can  be  but  rriere  knowing.  For  it  is  again 
faced  by  a  reality — even  though  it  has  in  this  case 
been  arbitrarily  presumed  identical  with  it — a  reality 
which  is  as  an  antecedent  to  it,  and  leaves  to  it  only 
the  task  of  looking  on.  So  we  must  conclude  that  the 
life  of  the  spirit  is  never  mere  contemplation.  What 
seems  to  be  contemplation — that  consciousness  which 
the  spirit  acquires  of  itself,  and,  acquiring  which,  real- 
ises itself — is  a  creation:  a  creation  not  of  things  but 
of  its  own  self.  For  what  are  things  but  the  spirit  as 
it  is  looked  at  abstractly  in  the  multiplicity  of  its 
manifestations? 

We  shall  more  easily  understand  that  our  knowing 
and  our  doing  are  indiscernible,  if  we  recall  that  our 
doing  is  not  what  is  also  perceived  externally,  a  motion 
in  space  caused  by  us.  This  external  manifestation  is 
quite  subordinate  and  adventitious.  The  essential 
character  of  our  doing  is  the  internal  will,  which  does 
not,  properly  speaking,  modify  things,  but  does  modify 
us,  by  bringing  out  in  us  a  personality  which  otherwise 
would  not  have  been.    This  is  the  substance  of  the  will, 


i8o  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

which  we  cannot  deny  to  thought,  if  thought  is,  as  I 
have  shown,  development,  and  therefore  continuous 
self-creation  of  the  personality. 

If  intellect  then  and  will  are  one  and  the  same  thing, 
to  such  an  extent  that  there  is  no  intellect  which  in  its 
development  is  not  development  of  personality,  forma- 
tion of  character,  realisation  of  a  spiritual  reality,  we 
shall  be  able  to  understand  that  the  ideas  of  two  dis- 
tinct spiritual  activities,  as  the  basis  of  the  ordinary 
distinction  between  moral  and  intellectual  training,  are 
mere  abstractions  that  tend  to  lead  us  away  from  the 
comprehension  of  the  living  reality  of  the  spirit.  This 
distinction  appears  to  me  exceedingly  harmful,  nothing 
being  more  deplorable,  from  the  moral  point  of  view, 
than  to  consider  any  part  of  the  life  we  have  to  live  as 
morally  indifferent;  and  nothing  being  more  harmful  to 
the  school  than  the  conviction  that  the  moral  formation 
of  man  is  not  the  entire  purpose  of  education,  but  only 
a  part  of  its  content.  It  is  indispensable,  I  maintain, 
that  the  educator  have  the  reverent  consciousness  of 
the  extremely  delicate  moral  value  of  every  single  word 
which  he  addresses  to  his  pupils  and  of  the  profoundly 
ethical  essence  of  the  instruction  which  he  imparts  to 
them.  For  the  school  which  gives  instruction  with  no 
moral  training  in  reality  gives  no  instruction  at  all.  All 
the  objections  voiced  on  this  score  against  education, 
which  we  try  to  meet  by  adding  on  to  instruction  all 
that  ought  to  integrate  the  truly  educational  function, 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  18 1 

are  the  result  of  this  abstract  way  of  looking  upon  in- 
struction solely  as  the  culture  of  an  intellect  which  in 
some  way  differs  from  the  will,  from  character,  and 
from  moral  personality. 

I  wish  here  to  call  attention  to  one  of  the  most  con- 
troverted questions  connected  with  popular  education, 
because  it  brings  out  very  clearly  the  impossibility  of 
keeping  moral  education  distinct  from  intellectual  in- 
struction. It  is  constantly  asserted  that  the  instruction 
of  the  common  people,  that  real  education  which  is  the 
main  purpose  of  the  modern  state,  is  not  a  question  of 
mere  reading  and  spelling;  that  these  do  not  constitute 
culture,  but  are  as  means  to  an  end,  and  ought  never 
to  be  allowed  to  take  the  place  of  the  end  to  which  they 
are  subservient.  The  school  therefore,  if  it  cannot 
shape  men,  should  at  least  rough-hew  them  and  give 
them  a  conscience,  whereas  now,  it  teaches  but  often 
does  not  educate:  it  gives  to  the  learner  the  means  of 
culture,  and  then  abandons  him  to  his  own  resources. 
The  optimism  of  educators  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
their  promise  that  marvels  would  come  out  of  elemen- 
tary instruction  propagated  and  spread  by  popular 
schools  devised  for  this  purpose,  was  constantly  met  in 
the  course  of  the  last  century  by  an  ever-growing  mis- 
trust of  instruction  generally  restricted  to  the  notion 
of  mere  instrumentality.  For  in  addition  to  other 
shortcomings  it  was  felt  that  this  instrument  might 
be  put  to  a  very  bad  use;  that  elementary  learning 


i82  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

might  be  a  dangerous  thing  if  it  were  not  accompanied 
by  something  that  instruction  pure  and  simple  cannot 
give,  namely,  soundness  of  heart,  strength  of  mind,  and 
conscience  strong  enough  to  uphold  intelligence  by  the 
vigorous  and  uncompromising  principles  of  moral  rec- 
titude. The  hopefulness  of  that  past  optimism  is  fast 
yielding  ground  to  the  pessimistic  denunciation  of  the 
insufficiency  of  mere  instruction  for  the  moral  ends  of 
life. 

There  is  a  serious  error  in  this  frequent  indictment 
brought  against  mere  instruction  as  a  means  of  attain- 
ing what  is  called  culture.  It  proceeds  from  the  at- 
tempt to  separate  something  that  was  not  meant  to  be 
separated.  ''What  God  hath  united  together,  man  shall 
not  put  asunder."  And,  in  any  event,  a  separation  as 
illegitimate  as  this  is  not  possible.  Superficially  we  may 
distinguish  and  apparently  sunder  instruction  from 
moral  training,  cut  off  the  means  from  the  end,  and 
separate  the  ability  to  read  and  write  from  what  we  are 
thereby  enabled  to  read  and  write.  In  fact  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet  are  taught  without  teaching  the  syllables 
which  they  compose,  and  without  the  words  that  are 
made  up  of  these  syllables,  and  the  thoughts  that  are 
expressed  by  these  words,  and  man's  life  which  becomes 
manifest  and  real  in  these  thoughts.  The  elementary 
school  is  in  fact,  as  it  is  in  name,  the  teaching  of  the 
elements.  Reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  all  subjects 
called  for  by  the  school  programme  are  taken  up  as 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  183 

mere  elements  with  which  the  pupil  is  expected,  later 
on,  to  compose  his  Book  of  Life,  complete  in  all  its 
sections.  But  in  the  meantime  it  is  thought  unwise 
to  burden  his  youthful  mind  with  the  weighty  and 
complicated  problems  that  can  be  solved  only  by  the 
experience  of  a  more  mature  life.  Of  course  after 
he  has  gone  forth  from  the  school  into  the  outer  world 
the  young  man  will  look  upon  this  elementary  knowl- 
edge as  the  raw  material  of  his  future  mentality.  As 
he  carves  out  his  path  to  this  or  that  goal,  in  accord- 
ance with  his  spiritual  interests  and  in  compliance  with 
the  contingencies  of  life,  he  will  avail  himself  of  this 
initial  instruction,  use  it  to  further  his  progress  towards 
this  or  that  end,  good  or  evil  as  the  case  may  be.  For 
intellectual  instruction,  it  is  argued,  can  be  made  sub- 
servient either  to  noble  impulses  or  to  base  motives. 
Careful  consideration,  however,  will  show  that  the 
responsibility  of  a  school  for  what  is  called  moral  in- 
sufficiency, but  is  in  reality  educational  defectiveness, 
cannot  be  removed  by  this  kind  of  considerations.  The 
alphabet  begins  to  be  such  when  it  ceases  to  be  a  series 
of  physical  marks  corresponding  to  the  sounds  into 
which  all  the  words  of  a  language  may  be  decomposed. 
The  alphabetic  symbol  is  effectively  such  when  it  is  a 
sound,  and  it  is  sound  when  it  is  an  image,  or  rather  a 
concrete  form  of  an  internal  vibration  of  the  mind. 
The  child  begins  to  see  the  alphabet  when  he  reads 
with  it.    Up  to  that  time  he  simply  draws  images  or 


i84  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

inwardly  gazes  at  the  semblance  of  the  picture  he  in- 
tends to  draw,  but  he  does  not  read.  As  soon  as  the 
symbol  is  read,  it  becomes  a  word.  That  is  why  every 
spelling  book  presents  the  letters  in  the  syllables  and 
the  syllables  in  the  words.  In  this  way  they  cease  to 
be  mere  scrawls  drawn  on  the  paper,  and  become 
thoughts.  They  may  be  dim,  vague,  and  mysterious; 
they  may  be  sharply  defined  or  they  may  blend  and 
fuse  into  a  suggestive  haze;  but  they  are  in  every  given 
instance  thoughts  that  are  being  awakened  in  the  mind 
of  the  child.  These  thoughts  have  in  them  the  power 
to  develop,  to  organise  themselves  and  become  a  dis- 
course. From  the  simple  sentences  and  the  nursery 
rhymes  of  the  primer,  they  grow  into  an  ever-richer 
significance.  From  the  sowing  to  the  harvesting,  from 
the  green  stalk  to  the  sturdy  trunk,  it  is  one  life  and 
one  sole  process.  The  mind  that  will  soar  over  the 
dizzy  heights  of  thought  begins  its  flight  in  the  humble 
lowlands.  And  it  first  becomes  conscious  of  its  power 
to  rise,  when  the  life  of  thought  is  awakened  by  the 
words  of  the  spelling  book. 

The  moment  the  child  begins  reading,  he  must  of 
necessity  read  something.  There  is  no  mere  instru- 
ment without  the  material  to  which  it  is  to  be  applied. 
The  infant  who  opens  his  eyes  and  strives  to  look  can- 
not but  see  something.  The  "picture,"  insignificant 
for  the  teacher,  has  its  own  special  colouring  for  the 
child's  mind.     He  fixes  his  gaze  on  it;  he  draws  it 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  185 

within  himself,  cherishes  it,  and  fosters  it  with  his 
fancies.  Such  is  the  law  of  the  spirit!  It  may  be 
violated,  but  the  consequences  of  transgression  are 
commensurate  with  the  majesty  of  this  law. 

Grammars  too,  hke  spelling  primers  and  rhetorics 
and  logic  and  every  kind  of  preceptive  teaching,  may 
be  assumed  as  a  form  separated  from  its  contents,  as 
something  empty  and  abstract.  The  child  is  taught 
for  instance  that  the  letter  m  in  mamma  does  not  be- 
long to  that  word  (we  call  it  a  "word,"  and  forget 
that  to  him  at  least  it  is  not  a  word  but  his  own 
mother).  That  letter  m,  we  tell  him,  is  found  in  other 
words,  mat,  meat,  etc.  We  show  him  that  it  is  in  all 
of  them,  and  yet  in  none  of  them.  We  therefore  can 
and  must  abstract  it  from  all  concrete  connections,  iso- 
late and  fix  it  as  that  something  which  it  is  in  itself 
— the  letter  m.  In  the  same  manner  we  abstract  the 
rule  of  grammar  from  a  number  of  individual  examples. 
We  exalt  it  over  them,  and  give  it  an  existence  which 
is  higher,  and  independent  of  theirs.  And  so  for 
rhetoric,  and  so  for  logic. 

But  in  this  process  of  progressive  abstraction,  in 
this  practice  of  considering  the  abstract  as  something 
substantial,  and  of  reducing  the  concrete  and  the  par- 
ticular to  the  subordinate  position  of  the  accessory,  life 
recedes  and  ebbs  away.  The  differences  between  this 
and  that  word,  between  two  images,  two  thoughts,  two 
modes  of  thinking,  of  expressing,  of  behaving,  at  first 


1 86  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

become  slight,  then  negligible,  then  quite  inexistent, 
and  the  soul  becomes  accustomed  to  the  generic,  to 
the  empty,  to  the  indifferent.  It  knows  no  longer  how- 
to  fix  the  peculiarities  of  things,  how  to  notice  the  dif- 
ferent traits  of  men's  characters,  their  interests,  their 
diverse  values,  until  finally  it  becomes  indifferent  and 
sceptical.  Words  lose  their  meaning;  they  no  longer 
smack  of  what  they  used  to;  their  value  is  gone. 
Things  lose  their  individuality,  and  men  their  physi- 
ognomies. This  scepticism  robs  man  of  his  own  faith, 
of  his  character  and  personality.  The  fundamental 
aim  of  education  ceases  to  exist.  Abstract  education 
is  no  education  at  all.  It  is  not  even  instruction.  For 
it  does  not  teach  the  alphabet  as  it  really  exists,  as 
something  inseparable  from  the  sound,  and  from  the 
word,  and  from  the  human  soul!  All  it  gives  is  a  new 
materialised  and  detached  abstraction. 

The  alphabet  is  real  and  concrete,  not  abstract;  it 
is  not  a  means  but  an  end;  it  is  not  mere  form  but 
also  content.  It  is  not  a  weapon  which  man  may  wield 
indifferently  either  for  good  purposes  or  for  evil  mo- 
tives. It  is  man  himself.  It  is  the  human  soul,  which 
should  already  flash  in  the  very  first  word  that  is 
spelled,  if  it  is  read  intelligently.  And  it  ought  to  be 
a  good  word,  worthy  of  the  child  and  of  the  future 
man,  a  word  in  which  the  youthful  pupil  ought  already 
to  be  able  to  discover  himself, — not  himself  in  general, 
but  that  better  self  which  the  school  gradually  and 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  187 

progressively  will  teach  him  to  find  within  himself. 
So  considered,  the  alphabet  is  a  powerful  instrument 
of  human  formation  and  of  moral  shaping.  It  is  edu- 
cation. 

For  this  reason  the  school  must  have  a  library,  and 
should  adopt  all  possible  means  to  encourage  the  habit 
and  develop  the  taste  of  reading,  since  the  word  which 
truly  expresses  the  soul  of  man  is  not  that  one  word,  nor 
the  word  of  that  one  book.  A  word  or  a  book  will 
always  be  a  mere  fragment  of  life,  and  many  of  them 
therefore  will  be  needed.  Many,  very  many  books,  to 
satisfy  the  ever-growing  needs  of  the  child's  mind! 
Books  that  will  spur  his  thought  constantly  towards 
more  distant  goals,  and  his  heart  and  imagination  with 
it.    Thus  the  child  grows  to  be  a  man. 

Instruction  then  which  is  not  education  is  not  even 
instruction.  It  is  a  denuded  abstraction,  violently 
thrust  like  other  abstractions  into  the  life  of  the  spirit 
where  it  generates  that  monstrosity  which  we  have  de- 
scribed as  material  culture,  mechanical  and  devoid  of 
spiritual  vitality.  That  culture,  being  material,  has  no 
unity,  is  fragmentary,  inorganic,  capable  of  growing 
indefinitely  without  in  any  way  transforming  the  re- 
cipient mind  or  becoming  assimilated  to  the  process  of 
the  personality  to  which  it  simply  adheres  extrinsically. 
This  mechanical  teaching  is  commensurate  with  things, 
and  grows  proportionately  with  them;  but  it  has  no 
intimate  relation  with  the  spirit.    He  who  knows  one 


i88  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

hundred  things  has  not  a  greater  nor  a  different  in- 
tellectual value  from  him  who  knows  ten,  since  the 
hundred  and  the  ten  are  locked  up  in  both  in  exactly 
the  same  way  that  two  different  sums  of  money  are 
deposited  in  two  different  vaults.  What  merit  is  there 
in  the  safe  which  contains  the  greater  sum?  The  merit 
would  belong  to  the  man  who  had  accumulated  the 
greater  amount  by  a  greater  sum  of  labour,  for  it 
would  then  be  commensurate  with  work,  which  is  the 
developing  process  itself  and  the  life  of  the  human 
personality  to  which  we  must  always  have  recourse 
when  we  endeavour  to  establish  values.  For  as  we 
have  seen,  nothing  is,  properly  speaking,  thinkable  ex- 
cept in  relation  to  the  human  spirit. 

Whether  one  reads  a  single  book  or  an  entire  library, 
the  result  is  the  same,  if  what  is  read  fails  to  become 
the  life  of  the  reader — ^his  feelings  and  his  thoughts, 
his  passions  and  his  meditation,  his  experience  and  the 
extolment  of  his  personality.  The  poet  Giusti  has 
said:  ''Writing  a  book  is  worse  than  useless,  unless  it 
is  going  to  change  people."  Reading  a  book  with  no 
effect  is  infinitely  worse.  Of  course  the  people  that 
have  to  be  transformed,  both  for  the  writer  and  for 
the  reader  (who  are  not  two  very  different  persons 
after  all),  are  not  the  others,  but  first  of  all  the  author 
himself.  The  mere  reading  of  a  page  or  even  a  word 
inwardly  reconstitutes  us,  if  it  does  consist  in  a  new 
throb  of  our  personality,  which  continuously  renews 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  189 

itself  through  the  incessant  vibrations  of  its  becom- 
ing. This  then  is  the  all-important  solution, — that  the 
book  or  the  word  of  a  teacher  arouse  our  souls  and 
set  them  in  motion;  that  it  transform  itself  into  our 
inner  life;  that  it  cease  to  be  a  thing,  special  and  de- 
terminate, one  of  the  many,  and  become  transfused  into 
our  personality.  And  our  personality  in  its  act,  in  the 
act,  I  say,  and  not  in  the  abstract  concept  which  we 
may  somehow  form  of  it, — is  absolute  unity:  that  mov- 
ing unity  to  which  education  can  in  no  wise  be  re- 
ferred, unless  it  is  made  identical  with  its  movement, 
and  therefore  entirely  conformant  to  its  unity. 

The  man  whose  culture  is  limited,  or,  rather,  entirely 
estranged  from  the  understanding  of  life,  is  called 
homo  unius  libri.  We  might  just  as  well  call  him  homo 
omnium  librorum.  For  he  who  would  read  all  books 
need  have  a  leaking  brain  like  the  perforated  vessel  of 
the  daughters  of  Danaus, — a  leak  through  which  all 
ideas,  all  joys,  all  sorrows,  and  all  hopes,  everything 
that  man  may  find  in  books,  would  have  to  flow  unceas- 
ingly, without  leaving  any  traces  of  their  passage,  with- 
out ever  forming  that  personality  which,  having  ac- 
quired a  certain  form  or  physiognomy,  reacts  and  be- 
comes selective,  picks  what  it  wants  out  of  the  con- 
geries, and  chooses,  out  of  all  possible  experiences,  only 
what  it  requires  for  the  life  that  is  suited  to  it.  We 
should  never  add  books  upon  books  ad  infinitum!  It  is 
not  a  question  of  quantity.    What  we  need  is  the  ability 


I9Ò  THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION 

to  discover  our  world  in  books, — that  sum  total  of  in- 
terests which  respond  to  all  the  vibrations  of  our  spirit, 
which  assuredly,  as  Herbart  claimed,  has  a  multiplicity 
of  interests,  but  all  of  them  radiating  from  a  vital 
centre.  And  everything  is  in  the  centre,  since  every- 
thing originates  there. 

Education  which  strives  to  get  at  the  centre  of  the 
personality,  the  sole  spot  whence  it  is  possible  to  derive 
the  spiritual  value  of  a  living  culture,  is  essentially 
moral,  and  may  never  be  hemmed  in  within  the  re- 
stricted bounds  of  an  abstract  intellectual  training. 
There  is  in  truth  a  kind  of  instruction  which  is  not 
education;  not  because  it  is  in  no  way  educative,  but 
because  it  gives  a  bad  education  and  trains  for  evil. 
This  realistic  education,  which  is  substantially  mate- 
rialistic, extinguishes  the  sentiment  of  freedom  in  man, 
debases  his  personality,  and  stifles  in  him  the  Hving  con- 
sciousness of  the  spirituality  of  the  world,  and  conse- 
quently of  man's  responsibility. 

The  antithesis  between  instruction  and  education  is 
the  antithesis  between  realistic  and  idealistic  culture, 
or  again,  that  existing  between  a  material  and  a 
spiritual  conception  of  life.  If  the  school  means 
conquest  of  freedom,  we  must  learn  to  loathe  the 
scrappiness  of  education,  the  fractioning  tendency 
which  presumes  to  cut  off  one  part  from  the  rest  of 
the  body,  as  if  education,  that  is,  personality,  could 
have  many  parts.    We  must  learn  to  react  against  a 


THE  UNITY  OF  EDUCATION  191 

system  of  education  which,  conceiving  its  role  to  be 
merely  intellectualistic,  and  such  as  to  make  of  the 
human  spirit  a  clear  mirror  of  things,  proceeds  to  an 
infinite  subdivision  to  match  the  infinite  multiplicity  of 
things.  Unity  ought  to  be  our  constant  aim.  We 
should  never  look  away  from  the  living,  that  is,  the 
person,  the  pupil  into  whose  soul  our  loving  solicitude 
should  strive  to  gain  access  in  order  to  help  him  create 
his  own  world. 


CHAPTER  IX 

CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL 
EDUCATION 

The  principle  of  educational  unity  which  I  have  briefly 
tried  to  illustrate  demands  a  further  development  in 
connection  with  the  claims  of  physical  culture.  For 
after  we  have  unified  moral  and  intellectual  discipline 
in  the  one  concrete  concept  of  the  education  of  the 
spirit,  whose  activity  cannot  be  cognitive  without  also 
being  practical,  and  cannot  realise  any  moral  values 
except  through  cognition,  it  might  yet  seem  that  a  com- 
plete and  perfect  system  of  education  should  aim  at  the 
physical  development  as  well  as  at  the  spiritual.  For 
the  pupil  is  not  solely  mind.  He  has  a  body  also;  and 
\  these  two  terms,  body  and  spirit,  must  be  conceived  in 
such  close  connection  and  in  such  intimate  conjunction 
that  the  health  of  the  one  be  dependent  on  the  sound- 
ness of  the  other. 

Before  elucidating  this  argument,  we  must  voice  our 
appreciation  of  the  pedagogical  principle  by  virtue  of 
which  the  ancient  Greeks  developed  their  athletic  edu- 
cation, and  which  since  the  Renaissance  has  for  a  dif- 
ferent motive  been  reintroduced  into  the  theory  of 
physical  culture, — a  theory  which  I  do  not  at  all  op- 
pose, but  rather  intend  to  reaffirm  on  the  grounds  of 

192 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION     193 

educational  unity.  This  pedagogical  principle  evi- 
dently originated  in  the  mode  of  considering  the  func- 
tion of  the  bodily  organism  in  respect  to  the  human 
mind,  since  every  time  we  scrutinise  the  interest  that  has 
always  guided  men  in  the  field  of  education,  we  find 
that  at  all  times  the  aim  of  education  has  been  the  de- 
velopment of  the  mind.  Nor  could  it  have  been  other- 
wise; for  whether  or  not  in  possession  of  a  clear  under- 
standing of  his  spiritual  essence,  man  spontaneously 
presents  himself  and  is  valued  as  a  personality,  which 
affirms  itself,  speaks  even  though  dumb,  and  says  "I." 
Education  begins  as  a  relation  between  master  and 
slave,  between  parent  and  children.  The  slave  and  the 
son  are  not  supported  and  cared  for — educated — as 
simple  brutes,  but  as  beings  endowed  with  the  same 
attributes  as  the  master  or  the  parent,  beings  who  are 
therefore  able  to  receive  orders  or  instructions  and 
build  their  will  out  of  these, — the  will  which  those  in 
authority  wish  to  be  identical  with  their  own.  The 
superior  commands  and  therefore  demands;  the  in- 
ferior obeys  by  replying,  and  he  replies  in  so  far  as 
he  is  a  spiritual  subject;  and  this  reply  will  become 
gradually  better  in  proportion  as  he  more  fully  actual- 
ises  that  spiritual  nature  which  the  master  wishes  to 
be  closely  corresponding  to  his  own.  Philosophy,  as 
well  as  naive  and  primitive  mentality,  considers  man 
to  be  such  in  so  far  as  he  is  conscious  of  what  he  does, 
of  what  he  says,  of  what  he  thinks;  and  also  in  that  he  is 


194    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

able  to  present  himself  to  others,  because  he  has  first 
been  present  to  himself. 

Man  is  man  in  that  he  is  self-consciousness.  Even 
the  despicable  tyrant  who  brutally  domineers  over  the 
wretch  who  is  forced  to  submit  to  his  overbearing 
arrogance,  even  he  wants  his  slave  to  be  intelligent, 
capable  of  guessing  his  thoughts,  and  refuses  to  con- 
sider him  as  an  unconscious  tool  of  his  whims.  The 
mother  who  tenderly  nurses  her  sick  child  is  indeed 
anxious  for  the  health  of  the  body  over  which  she  wor- 
ries, and  she  would  like  to  see  it  vigorous  and  strong. 
But  that  body  is  so  endeared  to  her,  because  by  means 
of  it  the  child  is  enabled  to  live  happily  with  her; 
through  it  his  fond  soul  can  requite  maternal  love  by 
filial  devotion  ;  or  in  it  he  may  develop  a  powerful  and 
beautiful  personality  worthy  to  be  adored  as  the  ideal 
creature  of  maternal  affection.  If  in  the  bloom  of 
physical  health  he  were  to  reveal  himself  stupid  and 
insensate,  endowed  with  mere  instinctive  sensuality  and 
bestial  appetites,  this  son  would  cease  to  be  the  object 
of  his  mother's  fondness,  nay,  he  would  arouse  in  her 
a  feeling  of  loathing  and  revulsion.  It  is  this  sense  of 
loathing  that  we  feel  towards  the  brutes,  to  the  extent 
that  we  never  can  be  sympathetically  drawn  to  them, 
and  that  we  also  feel  for  the  human  corpse  from  which 
life  has  departed;  for  life  is  the  basis  of  every  psycho- 
logical relation,  and  therefore  of  every  possible  sym- 
pathy. 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION     195 

Education  is  union,  communion,  inter-individual  uni- 
fication ;  and  unity  is  possible  only  because  men  spirit- 
ually convene.  Matter,  we  have  seen,  nature,  things, 
the  non-spirit  is  multiplicity.  As  soon  as  the  multi- 
plicity of  natural  elements  begins  to  be  organised,  al- 
ready in  their  organism  spiritual  activity  shines  forth. 
In  the  spirit  is  the  root  and  possibility  of  every  unifi- 
cation. It  is  spirit  that  unites  men.  Education  there- 
fore cannot  be  a  social  relationship  and  a  link  between 
men  except  by  being  a  spiritual  tie  among  human 
minds.  Therefore  it  is  now,  and  has  at  all  times  been, 
what  it  naturally  ought  to  be,  education  of  the  spirit. 

But  as  we  aim  at  the  education  of  the  spirit,  we  may 
or  we  may  not  take  care  of  the  body;  or  again  we  may 
take  care  of  it  in  this  or  that  way.  It  all  depends  on 
what  conception  we  have  of  the  spirit.  The  ancients 
made  a  great  deal  of  physical  culture,  and  the  Greek 
philosophers  of  antiquity  considered  gymnastics  to  be 
the  essential  complement  of  music,  including  in  music 
all  forms  of  spiritual  cultivation.  The  ancients  never 
divided  the  spirit  from  the  physical  reality  of  man  :  man 
as  a  whole  (body  and  psychic  activity)  was  conceived 
by  them  as  a  natural  being  subject  to  the  mechanism 
which  regulates  and  controls  nature.  When  Greek 
psychology  fell  under  the  influence  of  that  mystic  out- 
look which  is  peculiar  to  religious  belief,  the  soul,  which 
was  opposed  to  the  body,  and  which  was  looked  upon  as 
chained  and  emprisoned  in  the  body,  was  sharply  dis- 


196    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

tinguished  from  another  soul.  That  other  soul  was 
kept  in  contact  with  the  materiality  of  all  natural 
things,  and  together  with  them  was  governed  by  the 
law  of  mechanical  becoming,  that  is,  of  the  transforma- 
tions caused  by  motion  by  which  all  the  parts  of 
matter  are  bestirred.  This  natural  soul,  susceptible  of 
development,  and  capable  of  gradually  rising  to  the 
height  of  the  other,  of  the  pure  bodiless  mind  whose  act 
is  the  contemplation  of  truth;  this  soul  imbedded  in  the 
body,  which  does  not  therefore  give  to  man  a  supernatu- 
ral being,  but  like  all  things  of  nature  comes  into  the 
world,  grows  and  dies,  incessantly  passing  from  one 
mode  of  being  to  another,  this  soul  is  the  one  that  can 
and  ought  to  be  educated.  The  soul  which  results 
from  the  organic  process  of  the  physical  body,  and 
which  in  its  development  proceeds  side  by  side  with 
the  transformations  of  the  latter,  could  not  be  educated 
except  in  connection  with  the  development  and  im- 
provement of  the  body.  Human  thought,  which  then 
had  not  yet  secured  the  consciousness  of  its  own  ir- 
reducible opposition  to  nature, — the  consciousness,  in 
other  words,  of  its  own  essential  freedom, — seeing  it- 
self immersed  even  as  spiritual  substance  in  the  in- 
distinctness of  nature,  could  not  look  upon  education 
as  upon  a  problem  of  freedom  which  can  not  admit  of 
nature  as  limiting  spiritual  activity.  It  was  accordingly 
reduced  to  conceive  this  activity,  displayed  in  dealing 
with   man,    as   being   on    the   same   plane   with   the 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION     197 

other  forms  of  activity  which  propose  to  deal  with 
things  of  nature.  In  a  pedagogical  naturalism  of  this 
sort,  the  mind  could  not  be  the  mind  without  also  being 
body,  and  therefore  had  to  include  physical  develop- 
ment in  its  own  process. 

But  with  the  advent  of  Christianity  the  spirit  was 
sharply  dissociated  from  nature.  The  original  dual- 
ism of  law  of  the  spirit  and  law  of  the  flesh,  of  grace 
and  nature,  rescued  man  at  the  very  beginning  from  the 
tyranny  of  merely  natural  things,  and  announced  a 
kingdom  of  the  spirit  which  "is  not  of  this  world." 
And  it  is  not  in  fact  "of  this  world,"  if  by  world  we 
mean  what  the  word  ordinarily  implies, — the  world 
which  confronts  us,  and  which  we  can  point  out  to 
ourselves  and  to  others;  the  world  which,  being  the 
object  of  our  experience,  is  the  direct  antithesis  of 
what  we  are,  subject  of  experience,  free  personality, 
spirit.  Christian  humanity.  Man,  in  this  Christian 
conception,  in  this  opposition  to  nature  and  to  the  ex- 
perimental world,  overcomes  what  within  his  own  self 
still  belongs  to  nature,  subdues  that  part  of  him  which 
because  natural  appears  as  the  enemy  of  freedom  and 
of  the  finality  of  the  spirit;  as  the  seducer  and  the 
source  of  guilty  wiles  which  clip  the  wing  of  man's 
loftier  aspirations  and  weigh  him  down  into  a  beast- 
like subjection  to  instinct.  He  therefore  tends  to  un- 
derrate physical  education,  and  sacrifices  it  to  the  de- 
mands of  the  spirit.    He  does  not  completely  neglect 


198    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

the  question  of  the  behaviour  of  man  towards  physical 
nature;  he  could  not,  since  his  very  dualism  is  possible 
only  on  condition  that  he  correlate  the  two  terms  of 
the  opposition.  But  finding  that  his  attempt  to  attain 
freedom  and  realise  his  spiritual  destiny  is  thwarted 
by  the  natural  impulses  of  the  senses^  in  which  the 
life  of  the  body  is  made  manifest,  he  decides  to  re- 
move these  hindrances  and  to  clear  the  way  which 
leads  to  spiritual  salvation.  He  does  then  take  the  body 
into  consideration,  but  simply  to  check  its  instincts 
and  control  its  sensuous  appetites.  By  the  discipline 
of  self-mortification,  under  the  guidance  of  an  unbend- 
ing will,  he  subdues  the  flesh,  and  subjects  it  to  the 
exigencies  of  the  spirit. 

Evidently  this  subduing  discipline  is  still  physical 
exercise,  but  in  its  own  way.  The  haircloth  of  St.  Fran- 
cis corresponds  in  fact  to  the  club  of  Hercules,  and 
serves  the  same  purpose.  The  monsters  which  are 
knocked  down  by  the  weapon  which  Hercules  alone 
could  wield  torment  the  saint  of  Assisi  also;  only,  they 
are  within  him.  He  even  tames  the  wolf,  but  without 
club  or  chains,  by  the  mere  exercise  of  his  gentle  meek- 
ness. These  internal  monsters  are  not,  properly  speak- 
ing, in  the  material  body.  If  they  were,  the  Saint  would 
not  need  to  worry  about  them  any  more  than  about 
the  earth  under  his  feet  or  the  sack  on  his  shoulder. 
But  they  are  in  that  body  which  he  feels;  they  are  in 
that  soul  which,  with  the  violence  of  its  desires,  the 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION     199 

din  of  its  harsh  and  fiercely  discordant  voices,  distracts 
him  from  the  ideal  where  his  life  is.  They  are  in  that 
soul  which  thrusts  so  many  claims  on  him,  that  were 
he  to  satisfy  them  he  would  have  to  part  company 
with  his  Lady  Poverty,  and  become  once  more  the  slave 
of  things  which  are  not  in  his  power, — of  wealth,  which 
heaps  up  and  blows  away;  of  Fortune,  which  comes 
as  a  friend  and  departs  as  an  enemy.  He  would,  in 
other  words,  return  to  a  materialistic  conception  of 
life.  His  Lernaean  hydra  is  in  the  depths  of  his  heart, 
where  hundred-headed  instinct,  with  its  hundred 
mouths,  tears  the  roots  of  his  holy  and  magnanimous 
will,  eager  to  resemble  the  Saviour  in  love  and  self- 
sacrifice. 

This  monster  is  strangled  with  the  haircloth,  when 
the  body  is  hardened  and  trained  to  self-denial,  to  suf- 
fering, to  the  repression  of  all  animal  passions  which 
would  keep  man  away  from  his  goal.  This  discipline, 
far  from  debilitating  the  body,  gives  it  a  new  strength, 
an  endurance  which  enables  man  to  live  on  a  higher 
plane  than  he  would  if  he  followed  natural  impulses. 
For  this  more  difficult  manner  of  living,  a  robustness 
and  a  hardihood  are  requisite  which  are  beyond  the 
natural  means  of  the  body.  The  system  of  physical 
culture  which  gives  this  stupendous  endurance  is 
called  asceticism. 

But  this  system  is  an  abstract  one.  Man's  life  is  not 
poverty,  since  it  is  work  and  therefore  wealth.    And 


200    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

the  mind  with  its  freedom  cannot  be  conceived  of  as 
antagonistic  to  nature.  For  as  body  and  as  sense,  in 
so  far  as  we  exist  and  know  of  our  existence,  we 
belong  to  this  nature.  Antagonism  and  duaHty  import 
the  limitation  of  each  of  the  opposed  terms  and  ex- 
clude freedom  which  is  not  to  be  found  within  fixed 
limits;  for  freedom,  as  we  have  said,  means  infini- 
tude. 

The  spirit  is  free  only  if  infinite.  It  cannot  have 
any  obstructing  barrier  in  its  path.  It  can  be  con- 
ceived as  freedom  only  after  it  has  overcome  dualism, 
and  when  in  nature  itself  and  in  the  body  we  see  the 
effect  of  the  activity  of  the  spirit.  It  has  no  need 
therefore  of  walls  within  which  it  might  feel  the  neces- 
sity of  cloistering  itself  in  the  effort  to  renounce  the 
outer  world.  This  is  not  the  way  to  conquer  freedom. 
A  liberty  won  under  such  conditions  would  always 
be  insecure,  constantly  threatened,  always  beleaguered, 
and  therefore  a  mere  shadow  of  freedom.  The  spirit, 
if  it  is  free,  that  is,  if  it  is  spirit,  must  be  conterminous 
with  thought,  it  must  extend  its  sway  as  far  as  there 
is  any  sign  of  life  to  the  last  point  where  a  vestige  of 
being  can  be  revealed  to  it.  Nothing  thinkable  can 
be  external  to  it.  Whatever  presents  itself  to  it, 
whether  in  the  garb  of  an  enemy  or  under  the  cloak 
of  friendship,  can  only  be  one  of  its  creatures,  which 
it  has  placed  at  its  own  side,  or  in  front  of  itself,  or 
against  itself. 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    201 

This  new  pedagogical  and  philosophical  view,  first 
disclosed  to  Humanism,  then  enlightened  by  the  genius 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  appears  now  to  us  in  the 
full  light  of  modern  thought.  Superficially  it  might 
seem  identical  with  the  classical  and  naturalistic  out- 
look. In  reality,  however,  it  has  made  its  way  back 
to  it  only  in  order  to  confirm  and  integrate  the  concept 
of  Christian  spiritualism  and  to  bring  out  its  truth. 
Greek  athletics  is  the  training  of  the  body  as  an  end 
in  itself:  it  surely  serves  the  cause  of  the  spirit,  but 
only  in  so  far  as  the  spirit  is  grafted  on  the  trunk  of 
the  physical  personality,  and  to  the  extent  that  it  is 
able  to  absorb  all  its  vital  sap,  thereby  subjecting  itself 
to  generation  and  decay,  the  common  destiny  of  all 
natural  beings.  The  physical  culture  of  the  ancients 
is  spiritual  discipline,  only  to  the  extent  that  for  them 
the  mind  too  is  essentially  body.  Modern  physical  edu- 
cation, at  least  from  the  time  of  Vittorino  da  Feltre, 
is  spiritual  formation  of  the  body:  it  is  bodily  training 
for  the  benefit  of  the  spirit,  just  as  the  mediaeval  ascetic 
would  have  it;  but  of  a  spirit  which  does  not  intend  to 
bury  itself  in  abstract  self-seclusion  away  from  the 
existential  world,  of  a  spirit  which  passing  beyond  the 
cloister  walls  soars  over  the  realm  of  nature,  induing 
it  and  subduing  it  instrumentally  to  its  ends  and  as  a 
mirror  of  its  will.  So  that  for  moderns,  too,  physical 
culture  is  spiritual  education,  but  for  the  reason  that 
to  us  the  body  itself  is  spirit.     Our  science  is  not 


202    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

merely  a  speculation  of  ultra-mundane  truths,  but 
rather  a  science  of  man  and  of  man  in  the  Universe, 
and  therefore  also  of  this  nature  which  is  dominated 
and  spiritualised  by  becoming  known,  in  the  same 
way  that  every  book  that  is  read  is  spiritualised. 

This  concrete  notion  of  a  spirit  which  excludes  noth- 
ing from  itself  gives  concreteness  to  the  Christian  con- 
ception of  physical  discipline.  For  it  aims  to  turn  the 
body  into  an  obedient  tool  of  the  will,  not  however  of 
that  will  which  renounces  the  world,  but  of  that  will 
which  turns  to  the  world  as  to  the  field  where  its  battles 
are  fought  and  won;  to  the  world  which  it  transforms 
by  its  work,  constantly  re-creating  it,  now  modifying 
one  part  and  now  another,  but  always  acting  on  the 
entire  system,  and  renewing  it  as  a  whole  in  the  inti- 
mate organic  connection  and  interdependence  of  these 
parts;  to  the  world  which  forever  confronts  it  in  a 
rebellious  and  challenging  attitude,  and  which  it  labori- 
ously subdues  and  turns  into  a  mirror  of  its  own  be- 
coming. 

Modern  idealism  and  ancient  naturalism  both  em- 
phasise, though  for  opposite  motives,  the  importance 
of  a  positive  education  in  distinction  to  the  negative 
discipline  inculcated  by  mediaeval  asceticism.  We  said 
that  to-day  we  develop  the  body  because  the  body  is 
spirit.  This  proposition  runs  counter  to  common 
sense.  But  common  sense  as  such  cannot  be  respected 
by  the  thinker  unless  he  first  transforms  its  content. 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    203 

Our  body,  we  must  remember^  is  not  one  body  out  of 
many.  If  it  were  actually  mixed  with  and  lost  in 
the  multitude  of  material  things  which  surround  it,  we 
could  no  longer  speak  of  any  bodies.  For  all  bodies, 
as  psychologists  say,  are  perceived  in  so  far  as  they 
modify  ours  and  are  somehow  related  to  it.  Or  to  put 
it  in  a  different  and  perhaps  better  way,  all  other  bodies, 
which  we  possess  as  contents  of  our  experience,  form 
a  system,  a  circle,  which  has  its  centre;  and  this 
centre  is  our  body.  These  first  of  all  occupy  space,  but 
a  space  which  no  one  of  us  can  think  of  or  intuit 
otherwise  than  as  a  radiating  infinity,  the  centre  of 
which  we  occupy  with  our  body.  So  that  before  we  can 
speak  of  bodies,  we  must  first  cognise  our  own.  It  is 
the  foundation  and  groundwork  of  all  bodies.  Justly, 
therefore,  the  immanent  sense,  profound  and  contin- 
uous, which  we  have  of  our  body,  and  whose  modi- 
fications constitute  all  our  particular  sensations,  was 
called  the  fundamental  sentiment  by  our  Italian  phi- 
losopher Rosmini.  For  our  body  is  ours  only  in  so 
far  as  we  feel  it;  and  we  feel  it,  at  first,  confusedly  or 
rather  indistinctly,  without  discerning  any  differen- 
tiated part.  We  feel  it  as  the  limit,  the  other,  the  op- 
posite, the  object  of  our  consciousness,  which,  were  it 
not  conscious  of  something  (of  itself  as  of  something), 
would  not  be  consciousness,  would  not  realise  itself. 
And  it  realises  itself,  in  the  first  place,  as  consciousness 
of  this  object  which  is  the  body.    Accurately,  there- 


204    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

fore,  was  the  body  defined  by  Spinoza  as  ob'jectum 
mentis,  as  object  of  consciousness.  Objectless  con- 
sciousness is  not  consciousness;  and  it  is  likewise  ob- 
vious that  the  object  of  consciousness  cannot  be  such 
without  consciousness. 

The  two  terms  are  inseparable,  for  the  reason  that 
they  are  produced  simultaneously  by  one  and  the  same 
act,  from  which  they  cannot  be  detached  and  this  act 
is  the  free  becoming  of  the  spirit. 

Our  body,  this  first  object  of  consciousness,  as  yet 
indistinct  and  therefore  one  and  infinite,  is  not  really 
in  space,  the  realm  of  the  distinct,  of  the  multiple,  of 
the  finite.  It  is  within  our  own  consciousness.  And 
it  is  only  by  recalling  this  inwardness  that  we  are  able 
to  understand  how  it  happens  that  we  ("We" — spiritual 
activity)  act  upon  our  body,  animating  it,  sustaining 
it,  endowing  it  with  our  vigorous  and  buoyant  vitality; 
constantly  transforming  it,  in  very  much  the  same  way 
that  we  act  on  what  we  easily  conceive  to  be  our  moral 
personality.  As  we  direct  our  thoughts,  and  bringing 
them  out  of  the  dark  into  the  luminous  setting  of  our 
consciousness,  submit  them  to  scrutiny  and  correction, 
to  elimination  and  selection;  when  we  stifle  or  feed 
the  fire  of  our  passions;  when  we  cherish  ideals,  nour- 
ish them  with  our  own  life's  blood,  and  sustain  them 
with  our  unbending  resolve  ;  and  again  when  we  quench 
them  in  the  fickleness  of  our  whims,  are  we  not  con- 
stantly creating  and  variously  reshaping  our  spiritual 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    205 

life,  making  it  good  or  bad,  that  is,  eagerly  and  scrupu- 
lously intent  on  the  quest  of  Truth  or  slothfully  plunged 
in  ignorance  and  forgetfulness? 

But  our  body,  this  inseparable  companion,  which  is 
our  own  self,  is  no  particular  limb,  which  as  such 
might  be  removed  from  us.  We  remain  what  we  are, 
even  though  mutilated.  Each  part  of  our  organism 
is  ours,  in  that  it  is  fused  in  the  sole  and  indistin- 
guishable totality  of  our  living  being, — our  heart  and 
our  brain,  as  well  as  the  phalanx  of  a  fmger,  if  per- 
chance we  should  be  unable  to  live  without  it,  and  it 
therefore  effectively  constituted  our  being.  The  dis- 
tinction between  organs  that  are  vital  and  organs  that 
are  not  is  an  empirical  one,  and  relative  to  an  observa- 
tion which  is  true  within  the  limits  of  ordinary  occur- 
rence. 

If  our  body  is  the  body  which  we  perceive  as  ours, 
it  is  this  one  or  that  one  in  accordance  with  our  per- 
ception; and  this  perception  certainly  is  not  arbitrary, 
but  our  own,  subjective,  to  the  point  that,  in  an  ab- 
normal way,  one  may  cease  to  be  in  possession  of  his 
body  and  thus  to  be  no  longer  able  to  live  in  conse- 
quence of  the  loss  of  a  finger,  or  even  of  a  hair.  This 
hair  then  is  a  vital  part,  not  because  it  is  a  hair,  but 
because  it  has  been,  insanely  if  you  will,  assumed  and 
absorbed  in  the  distinct  unity  of  our  body. 

I  shall  try  to  make  my  thought  clearer  by  the  use 
of  an   example.     The  organ  of  organs,   as  a  great 


2o6    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

writer  once  said,  is  the  hand,  and  we  can  look  at  it 
from  two  quite  distinct  points  of  view.  We  may  place 
our  hand  on  a  table  by  the  side  of  other  hands,  the 
hands  of  persons  sitting  around  us.  We  see  its  shape, 
its  colour,  its  size,  etc.  ;  we  compare  it  with  the  others, 
and  we  almost  forget  it  is  ours,  because  then  we  do 
not,  in  act,  distinguish  it  from  the  remaining  ones.  In 
these  circumstances,  it  is  evident  that  our  hand  is 
in  our  consciousness  as  a  material  object,  separated 
from  every  essential  relationship  with  us — with  us  as 
we  are  in  the  act  of  looking  and  comparing.  This  is 
the  external  point  from  which  we  may  view  our  hand. 
But  there  is  another  one:  the  hand  that  picks  up  the 
pen  as  we  are  about  to  write  is  truly  our  hand,  the 
instrument  of  which  we  avail  ourselves  in  order  to  ply 
another  tool  which  is  needed  for  our  work.  In  these 
.circumstances  our  right  hand,  instead  of  being  for  us 
one  in  the  midst  of  many,  as  it  was  in  the  case  previ- 
ously considered,  is  ours,  the  only  one  which  we  can 
possibly  use,  as  we  endeavour  to  carry  out  our  inten- 
tion of  writing,  which  intention  is  our  will  to  realise 
our  personality  in  that  determined  way,  since  doing  a 
thing  always  means  realising  that  personality  of  ours 
which  does  that  thing.  Our  hand  in  this  case  coalesces 
so  completely  with  our  being  that  without  it — the  hand 
already  trained  to  write — we  could  not  be  ourselves. 
Abstractly,  to  be  sure,  we  should  be  ourselves.  But 
it  is  the  same  story  over  again.     What  exists  is  not 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    207 

the  abstract  but  the  concrete.  And  in  the  concrete,  we, 
who  are  about  to  write,  are  this  determined  personality, 
in  which  our  will  flows  into  the  hand;  and  just  as 
we  could  not  in  truth  distinguish  our  Self  from  our 
will  (we  being  nothing  more  and  nothing  less  than  this 
will  of  ours),  in  the  same  way  it  would  be  impossible 
to  distinguish  between  "us"  and  our  hand,  between  our 
will  and  our  hand.  Since  the  hand  now  wields  the 
pen,  having  perfected  its  instrumentality  by  means  of 
this  latter,  our  will  no  longer  leans  upon  and  termi- 
nates in  the  hand,  but  it  flows  on  and  presses  into 
the  point  of  the  pen  itself,  through  which,  if  neither 
ink  nor  paper  offers  resistance,  it  empties  into  the 
stream  of  writing.  This  writing  which  is  read  is 
Thought,  whereby  the  writer  finds  himself  at  the  end  in 
front  of  his  own  thinking,  that  is,  in  front  of  himself; 
that  self,  which,  considering  the  act  materially,  he 
seemed  to  be  leaving  further  and  further  behind, 
whereas  in  reality  he  was  penetrating  into  it  more  and 
more  deeply.  But  in  such  a  case  and  by  the  act  itself, 
can  we  effectively  distinguish  between  thought,  arm, 
hand,  writing  material,  the  written  page,  that  same  page 
when  read,  and  the  new  thought?  It  is  a  circle  made 
up  of  contiguous  points,  without  gaps  or  interruptions. 
It  is  one  sole  process,  wherein  in  consequence  of  a 
particular  organisation  of  our  personality,  we  place 
ourselves  in  front  of  ourselves,  and  thus  realise  our- 
selves.   The  hand  is  ours  because  it  is  not  distinguished 


2o8    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

from  us,  nor,  consequently,  from  the  remaining  limbs 
of  our  body  nor  from  its  material  surroundings. 

This,  our  hand,  knows  how  to  write  because  we  have 
learned  how  to  write:  in  exactly  the  same  way  that 
our  heart  knows  how  to  love,  to  dare  and  renounce, 
by  striving  earnestly  to  see  ourselves  in  others,  to 
repress  the  instinctive  timidity  of  excessive  prudence, 
and  to  break  the  force  of  desire  prompted  by  natural 
egoism.  We  are  then  what  we  want  to  be;  not  merely 
in  our  passions  and  ideas,  but  in  our  limbs  too,  to  the 
extent  that  their  being  depends  from  their  functions, 
and  their  functions  can  be  regulated  by  hygiene  and  ex- 
ercise, which  are  our  action  and  our  will. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  natural  datum  which  we  cannot 
modify,  which  we  have  to  accept  as  a  basis  for  further 
construction.  But  this  limitation,  imposed  on  the  truths 
I  mentioned  above,  must  be  accepted  without  in  any 
way  renouncing  the  truth  itself,  and  should  be  under- 
stood by  virtue  of  both  its  scientific  and  moral  values. 
This  warning  is  not  merely  helpful  in  connection  with 
the  question  now  before  us,  but  will  always  prove 
useful  on  account  of  its  bearing  on  the  many  problems 
which  arise  from  a  spiritualistic  conception  of  life  and 
cause  shiftless  philosophasters  to  shy  and  balk.  It  is 
true  that  there  is  a  body  which  we  did  not  give  to  our- 
selves, which  therefore  is  not  a  product  of  our  spirit, 
nor  part  of  its  life  and  substance,  but  only  if  we  think 
of  the  body  of  the  individual,  empirically  considered 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    209 

as  such.  In  this  sense  I  am  not  self -produced.  The 
son  can  ascribe  to  his  parents  the  imperfection  that 
mars  his  whole  existence,  whatever  kind  of  life  he 
may  decide  to  lead.  The  man  who  was  born  blind 
may  blame  his  affliction  upon  cruel  nature.  But  the 
child  who  calls  his  parents  to  account,  and  the  man 
who  complains  of  nature,  is  man  as  a  particular;  he 
is  one  of  many  men,  one  of  the  animals,  one  of  the 
beings,  one  of  the  infinite  things  wielded  by  Man  (that 
man  to  whom  we  must  always  refer,  when  we  wish  to 
recall  that  even  if  the  world  is  not  all  spirit,  there  is 
at  least  a  little  corner  therein  set  aside  for  it)  ;  he  is 
one  of  the  infinite  things  which  Man  gathers  and  uni- 
fies in  his  own  thought  because  he  is  thought.  The 
particular  man  is  man  as  he  is  being  thought,  who 
refers  us  to  the  thinking  man  as  to  the  true  man. 
This  true  man  is  also  an  individual,  not  as  a  part  but 
as  the  whole,  and  comprehends  all  within  itself. 
And  in  this  man,  parents  and  children  are  the  same 
man.  In  it  men  and  nature  are,  likewise,  one  and 
the  same,  man  or  spirit  in  its  universality.  We  (each 
one  of  us)  are  one  and  the  other  of  these  men;  but 
we  are  one  of  them,  the  smaller  one,  only  in  that  we 
are  the  other  one,  the  larger  one,  and  we  ought  not  to 
expect  the  small  to  take  the  place  of  the  large  and 
to  act  in  his  stead.  All  our  errors  and  all  our  sins 
are  caused  by  substituting  one  in  place  of  the  other. 
And  what  is  more,  the  large,  the  all  embracing,  the 


2IO    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

infinite,  is  present  in  the  small  with  all  his  infinitude. 
Personality  as  such,  in  its  actuality,  does  not  shrink 
and  restrict  itself  to  the  singular  and  particular  man. 
Within  those  boundaries  which  are  only  visible  from 
the  outside,  it  internally  expatiates  to  infinity,  absorbing 
in  itself  and  surmounting  all  limitations.    The  man  born 
blind  does  not  know  the  marvels  and  the  wondrous 
beauties  of  nature  which  gladden  the  eyes  and  the  soul 
of  the  seeing  man.     But  his  soul  pours  out  none  the 
less  over  the  infinity  of  harmonies  and  of  thought. 
And  the  blind  man  who  once  saw,  in  the  consciousness 
of  his  sightlessness,  cherishes  the  boundless  image  of 
the  world  once  seen,  and  magnifies  it  indefinitely  by 
the  aid  of  the  imagination.    He  even  heals  the  wounds 
and  soothes  the  pain  of  blindness  by  making  it  objective 
through  reflection;  and  the  personality,  at  any  event, 
always  victoriously  breaks  out  of  the  narrow  cell  in 
which  it  might  seem  to  be  confined.     So  that  in  the 
depths  of  even  the  gloomiest  dungeon  a  ray  of  light 
always  peers  through,  to  lighten  and  comfort  the  soul 
of  man  in  misery,  and  to  restore  to  him  the  entire  and 
therefore  infinite  liberty  of  creating  for  himself  a  world 
of  his  own. 

We  can  therefore  say  that  man,  he  that  lives — not 
the  one  which  is  seen  from  the  outside,  but  the  think- 
ing and  the  willing  man,  who  is  a  personality  in  the 
act — ^never  submits  to  a  nature  which  is  not  his  own. 
He  shapes  his  own  nature,  beginning  with  his  body, 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    211 

and  gradually  from  it  magnifying  the  effect  of  his 
power,  and  crowding  the  environing  space,  which  is 
his,  with  the  creatures  he  gives  life  to.  We  must  not 
consider  the  smaller  man  whom  we  see  confined  to  a 
few  square  feet  and  at  the  mercy  of  the  passing  in- 
stant. We  must  intently  look  upon  that  other  one 
who  has  done  and  still  continues  to  do  all  the  beautiful 
things  on  which  we  thrive,  on  that  one  who  is  human- 
ity, the  spirit.  We  must  consider  his  power,  which 
is  thought  and  work  (work,  that  is,  as  thought);  and 
ponder  over  this  material  world  in  which  we  live,  all 
blocked  out,  as  it  is,  measured,  and  traversed  by  forces 
which  we  bridle,  accumulate  and  release,  at  pleasure, 
— this  world  which  has  been  altered  from  its  former 
state,  and  has  been  made  as  we  now  see  it  fit  for 
human  habitation,  which  has  been  joined  to  us,  as- 
similated to  our  life,  spiritualised.  When  we  have 
done  all  this  we  shall  see  how  impossible  it  is  to  dis- 
connect nature  from  the  spirit,  and  to  think  the  former 
without  the  latter.  Nature  may  be  dissociated  from 
the  natural  man,  that  is,  one  of  its  parts  may  be  isolated 
from  the  remainder.  But  such  man  of  nature  is  not 
the  one  who  rules  over  nature:  he  is  not  Volta  who 
clutches  the  electric  current  and  transforms  the  earth; 
he  is  not  Michel  Angelo  who  transfigures  marble  and 
creates  the  Moses. 

Physical  education,  then,  is  not  superadded  to  the 
education  of  the  spirit,  but  is  itself  education  of  the 


212    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

spirit.  It  is  the  fundamental  part  of  this  education, 
in  as  much  as  the  body  is,  in  the  sense  we  have  used 
the  words,  the  seat  of  our  spiritual  personality.  Living 
means  constructing  one's  own  body,  because  living  is 
thinking,  and  thinking  is  self-consciousness;  but  this 
consciousness  is  possible  only  if  we  make  it  objective, 
and  the  object  as  such  is  the  body  (our  body).  For 
as  consciousness  is,  so  is  the  body.  There  is  no  think- 
ing which  is  not  also  doing.  Thinking  not  only  builds 
up  the  brain,  but  the  rest  of  the  body  besides.  We  may 
call  it  will,  but  then  there  is  not  one  single  act  of 
thought  which  is  not  the  mental  activity  indicated  by 
this  word  "will."  Without  will  we  should  have  no  bod- 
ily substance,  in  as  much  as  the  body  is  always  and 
primarily  life,  and  living  is  impossible  without  willing. 
What  are  called  involuntary  movements  are  not  really 
such;  they  differ  from  the  so-called  voluntary  in  that 
they  are  constant,  immanent,  so  much  so  that  we  can 
after  all  interrupt  them.  Without  the  exercise  of  our 
will  we  could  never  hold  ourselves  erect  and  keep  our 
feet,  but  would  forever  be  stumbling  and  falling;  unless 
we  willed  it,  the  power  which  keeps  every  organ  in 
its  place,  and  maintains  all  the  organs  in  the  circle  of 
life,  would  be  annihilated.  Therefore  morale,  as  they 
say,  is  a  very  considerable  aid  in  curing  the  diseases 
of  the  body.  It  is  on  this  account  that  societies  and 
religious  sects  have  arisen  which  make  of  moral  faith 
an  instrument  of  physical  well-being.     For  the  same 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    213 

reason,  also,  it  is  impossible  for  the  psychiatrists  to 
draw  a  line  separating  mental  troubles  from  bodily 
ailments.  The  force  of  the  will,  the  vigour  of  the  per- 
sonality, the  impulse  of  the  spirit  in  its  becoming,  this 
is  the  wondrous  power  which  galvanises  matter  and 
organically  quickens  it;  which  sustains  life,  equips  it, 
and  fits  it  for  its  march  towards  ever  renewed,  ever 
improved  finalities.  It  is  not  temperament  which  is 
the  basis  of  character,  but  character  which  is  the  basis 
of  temperament.  If  we  reverse  this  proposition,  every 
moral  conception  of  life  becomes  absurd,  and  every 
spiritual  value  appears  ineffectual.  Don  Abbondio  then 
ceases  to  be  wrong,  and  Cardinal  Federico  Borromeo 
is  no  longer  right. 

Character  too  is  an  empirical  concept,  and  like  all 
such  concepts,  it  has  a  truthfulness  which  is  not  clearly 
discernible,  but  dimly  visible.  Character  signifies 
rational  personality,  using  the  term  rationality  to  mean, 
not  the  movement  or  the  becoming  which  belongs 
peculiarly  to  reason  as  the  form  of  spiritual  activity, 
but  the  coherence  of  the  object  on  which  this  activity 
is  fixed,  which  coherence  in  turn  consists  in  the  har- 
mony whereby  it  is  possible  to  think  all  the  parts  of 
objective  thought  as  forming  a  single  whole,  in  that 
there  is  no  conflict  or  contradiction  among  them,  and 
in  as  much  as  the  object  remains  always  the  same 
throughout  all  these  particulars.  If  in  the  course  of 
reasoning  we  introduce  conflicting  statements  which 


214    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

cannot  possibly  be  referred  to  the  same  thing,  we  cannot 
be  said  to  reason.  Rationality  is  the  permanence  of 
the  being  of  which  we  think:  it  is  firmness  of  concep- 
tion, stability  of  a  law  which  we  apply  to  all  particu- 
lars that  come  under  its  sway.  For  the  object  of  con- 
sciousness is  characterised,  in  respect  to  the  act  which 
constitutes  it,  by  this  stability  and  immutability.  What 
we  think  is  that  and  no  other,  whereas  thought,  by 
which  we  think  it,  is  a  becoming  and  a  continuous 
change. 

But  the  character  of  man  is  in  the  object,  in  the 
contents  of  his  thought,  in  what  he  gradually  builds 
himself  up  to,  in  the  determined  personality  which  he 
constitutes  by  thinking,  or,  in  other  words,  in  his  body. 
But  body,  be  it  remembered,  in  an  idealistic  sense, 
body  as  a  system,  forming,  with  its  law  and  its  con- 
figuration, the  solid  basis  of  every  ulterior  develop- 
ment. This  truth,  vaguely  accepted  by  common  sense, 
which  looks  upon  a  strong  constitution  as  a  prelim- 
inary to  a  sound  character,  will  appear  in  its  full  light 
only  after  it  has  been  stripped  of  the  fantastic  and 
material  attributes  which  it  receives  from  a  realistically 
vulgar  way  of  conceiving  the  body  materially.  For  it 
is  evident  that  a  feeble  and  sickly  man  may  yet  have 
a  steel-like  character.  Farinata,  who  stands  "erect 
with  breast  and  brow,"  as  though  he  held  Hell  in  con- 
tempt: Giordano  Bruno,  who  amidst  the  flames  that 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    215 

already  consume  his  flesh  disdainfully  turns  his  eyes 
from  the  symbol  of  the  religion  which  had  thrust  him 
on  the  stake,  are  evident  examples  of  a  strength  of 
mind  with  no  relation  to  their  physical  powers,  which 
were  already  destroyed  or  about  to  be  scattered  by  an 
irresistible  might.  Leopardi  is  right  when  he  scorn- 
fully protests  that  his  ill  health  is  not  the  cause  of 
that  sad  pessimism  which  in  his  mind  solemnly  chal- 
lenges "the  unseemly  hidden  Power." 

Character  is  physical  robustness  to  the  extent  that 
this  latter  is  spiritual  haleness,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is 
compact,  firm,  steadfast  thought.  Thought  in  this  re- 
spect appears  externally  as  body,  not  subject  to  the 
hostile  forces  that  perpetually  beset  it  from  without 
and  from  within;  and  on  account  of  the  intrinsic  spir- 
ituality of  its  substance,  it  is  a  law  rather  than  a  fact, 
and  a  process  or  a  tendency  rather  than  a  fixed  and 
established  manner  of  being.  For  organic  endurance, 
which  is  really  what  we  mean  by  health,  does  not 
consist  in  muscular  development  or  in  the  bloom  of  an 
exuberant  constitution,  but  rather  in  an  indwelling 
power,  in  dynamically  persistent  and  tenacious  strug- 
gle and  adaptation,  in  the  capacity  of  self-preservation, 
of  self-affirmation,  which  is  the  specific  essence  of 
spiritual  being. 

This  body,  in  which  thought  organises  and  consoli- 
dates itself;  this  body,  by  means  of  which  thought  is 


2i6    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

enabled  to  press  on  its  vigorous  development,  reab- 
sorbing in  its  actual  present  the  past  accomplishment, 
and  to  proceed  on  its  ascent,  scaling  the  height  step 
by  step,  never  sliding  downward,  because  every  grade 
it  builds  remains  as  a  firm  support  of  the  next  one;  — 
this  is  man's  character,  which  is  not  an  attribute 
of  the  will  considered  as  practical  activity  in  contra- 
distinction to  theoretic  activity.  Character  is  an  at- 
tribute of  the  spirit  qua  spirit,  without  any  adjectives. 
We  may,  if  we  will,  distinguish  the  practical  from  the 
theoretical  man,  the  soundness  of  the  will  from  intel- 
lectual originality.  But  just  as  it  is  not  possible  to 
conceive  of  a  really  fruitful  and  constructive  practical 
activity  without  that  coherence  of  design  and  self-sup- 
porting volitional  continuity  which  constitute  char- 
acter, in  the  same  way  intelligence  and  ingenuity  will 
not  become  manifest  without  firmness  of  purpose, 
without  persevering  reflection  and  study  of  the  object, 
and  without  stability  of  this  object  of  intellectual 
activity,  which  again  constitute  character.  If  character 
is  set  as  the  basis  of  morality,  then  every  science  and 
every  form  of  culture,  even  those  which  aim  at  evil,  con- 
sidered in  themselves,  as  the  life  of  the  intelligence 
must  have  a  moral  value,  must  be  governed  by  an 
inviolable  law.  By  spiritual  steadfastness,  which  is 
the  condition  of  spiritual  productivity,  man  sacrifices 
himself  to  an  ideal  and  constitutes  his  moral  person- 
ality, whether  he  die  for  his  country  or  whether  he 


CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION    217 

labour  to  bring  light  amid  his  thoughts.  Life  in  all  its 
phases  is  the  untiring  fulfilment  of  duty. 

To  conclude  then,  physical  education  must  be  en- 
couraged, but  as  spiritual  training  and  as  formation  of 
character.  Gymnastic  exercise,  therefore,  far  from 
being  the  only  way  to  this  end,  may  even  lead  in  the 
opposite  direction;  and  it  will  do  so  as  long  as  it  is 
considered  apart  from  the  remainder  of  education,  with 
a  particular  scope  of  its  own,  and  with  heterogeneous 
contents  in  respect  to  spiritual  education  properly  so- 
called.  The  teacher  of  physical  education  must  always 
bear  in  mind  that  he  is  not  dealing  with  bodies,  bodies 
to  be  moved  around,  to  be  lined  up,  or  rushed  around 
a  track.  He  too  is  training  souls,  and  collaborates 
with  all  the  other  teachers  in  the  moral  preparation 
and  advancement  of  mankind.  If,  in  addition  to  his 
special  qualifications,  he  does  not  possess  culture 
enough  to  enable  him  to  discern  the  spirit  beyond  the 
body,  and  to  understand  therefore  the  moral  value  of 
order,  of  precision,  of  gracefulness,  of  agility,  by  which 
man  externally  realises  his  personality,  he  will  no  doubt 
fulfil  the  ordinary  demands  of  physical  culture,  but 
he  will  just  as  certainly  antagonise  and  disgust  those 
of  his  pupils  who  are  most  highly  gifted  and  other- 
wise better  trained,  and  he  can  therefore  lay  no  claim 
to  the  title  of  educator. 

Education  then  is  either  one  or  not  effective.  The 
assumption  that  there  are  many  kinds  of  education 


2i8    CHARACTER  AND  PHYSICAL  EDUCATION 

leads  to  very  disastrous  results.  Education  is  one; 
and  as  a  whole  it  appears  unchanged  in  each  one  of 
the  parts  that  we  ordinarily  distinguish  in  it,  accord- 
ing as  we  approach  the  human  spirit  now  from  one  side 
and  now  from  the  other. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

ART    AND   RELIGION 

We  have  shown  in  the  previous  chapters  the  necessity 
of  rigorously  maintaining  the  unity  of  education,  of  re- 
sisting every  attempt  at  separation,  of  opposing  all 
systems  which  treat  the  various  parts  of  education  as 
though  they  could  be  kept  distinct  in  practice  and 
theory.  There  still  remains  a  question  which  naturally 
arises  at  this  juncture,  and  which  we  must  try  to 
answer.  For  true  it  is,  some  one  might  say,  that 
moral  and  intellectual  education  are  one  and  the  same 
thing,  and  true  it  may  be  that  education  of  the  mind 
and  culture  of  the  body  work  for  the  same  results;  and 
it  may  also  be  admitted  that  education  being  forma- 
tion, or  development,  that  is,  the  becoming  of  the 
spirit,  and  the  spirit  consisting  in  its  becoming  or 
rather  in  becoming  pure  and  simple,  it  follows  that 
education  means  spirit  and  nothing  more.  But  grant- 
ing all  this,  was  it  really  worth  while?  When  we 
have  attained  this  notion  of  the  unity  which  is  always 
the  same,  no  matter  under  how  many  aspects  it  may 
present  itself,  what  have  we  gained?  Have  we  here 
anything  more  than  a  word?     One  says  "spirit,"  an- 

219 


220  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

other  might  say  "God,"  or  "nature,"  or  "matter,"  or 
some  such  thing,  and  there  would  not  be  much  differ- 
ence. It  might  well  be  that  in  the  course  of  the 
inquiry  into  the  attributes  of  the  spirit,  a  way  was 
found  to  invest  our  word  with  quite  a  different  mean- 
ing; but  still,  after  we  have  defined  and  distinguished 
the  concept  of  the  spirit  from  all  the  others,  we  have 
not  progressed  much.  We  may  have  the  satisfaction 
of  continuing  to  see  before  us  this  concept,  with  no 
possibility  of  ever  ridding  ourselves  of  its  presence, 
but  how  much  will  we  know  of  the  contents  that  this 
spirit  is  supposed  to  have?  What  are  the  principles 
that  should  govern  this  education,  which  has  been 
clearly  stated  to  be  not  a  natural  fact,  but  a  free 
action,  and  therefore  a  selection  enlightened  by  con- 
sciousness, by  reflection,  and  by  reason? 

This  suggested  objection  is  not  a  purely  imaginary 
one.  Very  often  superficial  critics,  forgetting  that 
pedagogical  problems  pertain  to  philosophy  and  are 
therefore  problems  of  the  spirit,  awkwardly  try  to 
solve  them  by  the  insufficient  light  of  common  sense. 
In  so  doing  they  warn  us  that  in  idealistic  pedagogics 
all  particular  and  definite  concepts  vanish,  and  what 
remains  is  a  vague  confused  indistinctness  of  no  prac- 
tical utility  to  the  teacher. 

And  truly,  if  the  only  result  obtained  by  idealistic 
pedagogics  were  the  demonstration  that  many  concepts, 
ordinarily  considered  to  be  substantially  different,  are 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  221 

in  reality  identical,  we  should  not  hesitate  to  call  such 
philosophical  knowledge  useless  and  ridiculous.  But 
in  the  first  place  we  must  notice  that  this  assumed 
deficiency  charged  against  us  has  partially  been  shown 
to  be  non-existent  by  the  exposition  of  our  doctrine, 
which  reduces  education  to  free  spiritual  becoming, 
and  resolves  the  apparent  multiplicity  of  educational 
forms  in  the  immultiplicable  unity  of  this  becoming, 
outside  of  which  nothing  is  truly  conceivable. 

For  the  defect  of  our  system  was  assumed  in  con- 
nection with  an  exigency  which  divides  itself  into  two 
parts,  respectively  corresponding  to  the  form  and  to 
the  matter  of  education.  For  many  of  the  pedagogical 
errors  which  we  have  pointed  out  were  seen  to  be 
imputable,  not  to  the  choice  of  an  unsuitable  content 
of  education,  but  to  the  criterion  adopted  in  treating 
this  content.  I  have  already  spoken  of  my  disin- 
clination to  accomplish  a  mere  negative  task;  and  in 
the  last  chapter,  while  denouncing  the  materialistic 
conception  of  physical  education,  I  certainly  did  not 
spare  the  ascetic  view  which  knows  of  no  body  other 
than  the  one  which  harasses  the  spirit  and  hinders  its 
progress  toward  the  ultimate  good;  and  thereupon  I 
tried  to  show  that  physical  culture  is  spiritual  edu- 
cation endowed  with  that  self-same  nature  which  be- 
longs to  education  when  considered  as  formation  of 
the  will  and  of  the  intellect.  But  this  does  not  mean 
that  our  thesis  reduces  itself  to  a  mere  theoretic  trans- 


222  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

valuation  or  to  a  new  abstract  interpretation  of  our 
present  educative  system,  which  however  in  practice 
could  not  be  affected  by  this  purely  theoretical  dif- 
ference of  interpretation.  I  tried  to  make  it  clear 
that  our  conception  is  not  devoid  of  practical  import, 
and  that  it  does  lead  to  a  reform  in  education  and 
to  a  new  orientation  of  the  school.  This  was  espe- 
cially brought  out  in  connection  with  physical  culture 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  when  I  insisted  on  the  neces- 
sity that  physical  instructors  be  trained  in  such  a  way 
that  their  mental  equipment  shall  not  be  limited  to 
notions  that  refer  exclusively  to  the  body  in  its  physical 
limitations:  but  that  in  addition  to  physiology,  anat- 
omy, and  hygiene,  they  be  made  familiar  also  with 
those  studies  and  disciplines  that  are  more  intimately 
connected  with  character,  with  the  soul,  and  with  the 
mind. 

But  besides  this,  our  entire  investigation  dealing  with 
the  reasons  for  an  absolutely  spiritualistic  conception 
of  education  should  have  made  it  very  clear  that  it  is 
not  possible  to  entertain  these  new  conceptions  with- 
out introducing  in  the  school  a  new  spirit,  which  will 
not  yield  to  the  realistic  vogue  and  to  the  materialistic, 
pedantic,  old-fashioned  education, — a  spirit  which  will 
bring  before  us  a  new  duty  in  every  instant  of  our 
teaching  life  and  in  every  word  we  utter,  and  which 
will  impress  us  with  the  necessity  of  acting  differently 
from  what  has  been  taught  by  the  followers  of  tra- 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  223 

ditional  pedagogical  routine.  Whatever  the  subject 
may  be,  the  form  of  education  has  to  be  in  accord 
with  something  that  should  by  now  be  the  common 
possession  of  us  all,  namely,  the  consciousness  of  the 
intimate  spirituality  and  of  the  sacred  freedom  of  our 
work,  which  operates  not  in  the  material  schools  but 
within  the  souls  of  our  pupils.  There  it  gives  rise 
not  to  incidents  that  are  unessential  to  that  greater 
world  which  is  the  aim  of  our  religiously  serious  out- 
look on  life,  but  to  a  process  in  which  All  is  involved. 
The  speculative  side  then  of  this  form  of  education  is 
not  a  useless  and  abstract  theory,  but  a  necessary  mo- 
ment of  the  moral  improvement,  of  the  spiritual  en- 
hancement, and  of  the  general  regeneration  of  teaching. 
Indifference  to  this  reform,  and  the  belief  that  men  may 
continue  to  educate  without  bothering  with  the  subtle 
problems  of  philosophy,  mean  a  failure  to  understand 
the  precise  nature  of  education. 

But  the  question  of  the  content  of  education  is  a 
different  one.  Having  identified  education  with  spirit- 
ual reality  itself,  it  follows  that  the  two  determinations 
of  the  content  of  the  latter  belong  to  the  content 
of  the  former.  One  of  these  determinations  is  his- 
torical in  character;  it  advances  as  the  history  of  the 
human  mind  progresses,  assuming  now  this  and  now 
that  aspect  in  accordance  with  the  prevailing  spiritual 
interests.  We  who  have  censured  the  conception  of 
pre-established  programmes,  as  being  most  dangerous 


224  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

prejudices  of  pedagogical  realism,  could  not  very  well 
presume  to  determine  here  in  the  abstract,  the  content 
of  every  possible  form  of  education  for  all  places  and 
all  times.  The  school,  like  every  other  form  of  edu- 
cation, develops;  and  as  it  grows,  it  constantly  changes 
its  content,  which  again  is  nothing  else  than  the  content 
that  the  spirit  gives  to  itself  at,  every  moment  of  its 
concrete  development. 

It  would  be  just  as  irrational  to  expect  a  school  to 
map  out  with  precision  the  limits  and  the  scope  of  a 
pupil's  culture.  Of  all  the  culture  carved  out  for  him 
at  school,  a  boy  will  absorb  only  that  much  which  is 
taken  up  by  the  autonomous  growth  of  his  personality. 
This  will  be  supplemented  and  integrated  by  the  cul- 
ture which  he  gets  outside  of  the  classroom,  in  all 
possible  walks  of  life,  and  will  be  so  personal  and  of 
such  a  character  as  to  admit  of  no  prevision  or  pre- 
determination even  on  the  part  of  the  learner  himself. 
Away  with  pre-established  programmes  then  of  any 
description!  Spiritual  activity  works  only  in  the 
plenitude  of  freedom.  Horace  asks:  Currente  rota  cur 
urceus  exit?  We  answer:  Whether  an  urceus  or  not, 
what  always  comes  from  the  rota  is  something  which 
cannot  be  foreseen,  for  the  very  simple  reason  that 
what  is  foreseen  is  not  the  future  but  the  past,  which 
we  (as  in  the  case  of  experimental  sciences)  project 
into  the  future,  whereas  the  spirit  is  a  creation  which 
occurs  not  in  time  but  in  a  never-setting  present. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  225 

So  every  abstract  discussion  of  the  possible  content 
of  education  in  general,  or  of  any  given  particular 
school,  must  appear  crude  and  absurd,  if  we  recall  that 
education  reflects  the  historical  development  of  the 
spirit.  What  we  need  to  do  is  to  wait,  observe,  and 
have  faith.  For  God  will  reveal  himself  to  us;  and 
God  is  the  very  Spirit  of  ours  which  at  every  moment 
prescribes  its  law  to  itself  and  thus  determines  its  own 
content. 

The  other  of  the  two  determinations  mentioned 
above  is  the  ideal,  or,  as  we  perhaps  might  more  pre- 
cisely call  it,  the  transcendental.  It  pertains  to  that 
spiritual  content  which  never  changes  as  it  passes 
through  the  various  historical  determinations,  and 
which  might  therefore  be  styled  the  "determiner  of  the 
intrinsic  and  absolute  essence  of  the  spirit."  This  con- 
tent upon  careful  consideration  reveals  itself  as  form, 
and  more  precisely  as  the  form  of  the  historically 
determined  content  of  the  spirit;  or  again  as  the  con- 
creteness  of  that  form  which  has  been  attributed  to 
the  spirit  considered  in  itself,  which  is  a  becoming. 
But  qua  becoming,  and  irrespective  of  all  special  as- 
pects with  which  it  historically  configures  itself,  the 
spirit  has  already  a  content  of  its  own,  which  cannot 
be  absent  from  any  of  its  historical  configurations. 
In  them  this  content  will  manifest  itself  over  and  over 
again,  but  constantly  modified  by  the  changes  that  are 
being    historically    produced.     Under    these    varying 


226  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

modes  and  presentations  it  permanently  abides  as  the 
indefectible  substance  of  the  spirit.  This  substance, 
this  ideal  spirit  which  becomes  actual  in  history,  can- 
not be  ignored  by  any  kind  of  pedagogics  which  aspires 
to  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  essence  of  education. 

Having  thus  formulated  the  problem,  and  clinging 
firmly  to  the  principle  of  educational  unity,  we  may 
distinguish  the  forms  of  education  which  proceed  from 
the  ideal  content  of  the  spirit.  But  we  must  always 
keep  in  mind  that,  as  these  forms  are  only  distinguish- 
able ideally,  they  can  in  no  way  be  effectively  sep- 
arated, and  must  be  found  in  every  concrete  educative 
act.  So  that  their  synthesis  and  their  complete  im- 
manence is  the  concreteness  of  educational  unity  in  its 
opposition  to  what  I  have  called  fragmentary  education. 
Our  distinction  then  will  turn  out  to  be  an  exact  logical 
analysis,  which  analyses  only  the  terms  of  a  S3mthesis 
and  cannot  therefore  be  dissociated  from  the  synthesis. 
By  analysing  and  by  synthesising,  by  determining  the 
spiritual  unity  without  disconnecting  or  in  any  way  dis- 
sociating its  intrinsic  ideal  determinations,  we  strive  to 
represent  the  ideal  of  education. 

In  making  a  rapid  survey  of  this  analysis,  I  must  refer 
back  to  what  was  said  of  the  attributes  of  the  spirit, — 
that  the  spirit  is  in  that  it  becomes,  that  it  becomes  in 
so  far  as  it  acquires  self-consciousness,  that  its  being 
therefore  is  consciousness  in  the  act  of  being  acquired. 
This  act  is  surely  self-consciousness,  and  it  does  mean 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  227 

cognition,  but  a  cognition  which  differs  from  all  others 
in  that  it  has  for  its  object  that  very  one  who  cognises. 
And  this  is  the  meaning  of  "I/'  identity  of  subject  and 
object, — an  identity,  however,  that  because  of  its  cu- 
rious nature  needs  to  be  carefully  examined.  It  was 
shown  in  a  preceding  chapter  that  two  things,  to  be 
thought  as  two,  must  yet  be  thought  as  one  by  virtue 
of  the  unique  relationship  which  makes  their  duality 
possible.  Here  we  observe  the  inverse:  identity  of 
subject  and  object  means  that  in  addition  to  the  sub- 
ject there  is — nothing;  it  means  therefore  unity.  And 
yet  this  unity  would  in  no  manner  be  intelligible  if 
it  were  not  also  a  duality,  if,  in  other  words,  the 
identity  of  subject  and  object  were  not  also  the  dif- 
ference between  them. 

To  distinguish  A  from  B,  an  initial,  elementary 
minimum  difference  is  required.  It  is  the  difference, 
called  otherness,  by  which  B  is  other  than  A.  With- 
out this  otherness  there  would  not  be  A  and  B,  but 
either  A  alone  or  B  alone.  The  subject  as  it  knows 
itself  is  certainly  not  another  from  the  subject  alone. 
But  if  it  did  not  become  other  to  itself,  if  it  were 
not  object  also,  as  well  as  subject,  it  would  never  know 
itself.  To  be  object  as  well  as  subject  implies  the 
necessity  of  distinguishing  these  two  terms,  and  shows 
that  there  is  otherness  between  them.  If  it  sounds 
harsh  to  speak. of  something  that  first  is  "one'*  and 
then  is  "two,"  we  might  state  the  situation  in  a  dif- 


228  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

ferent  and  perhaps  simpler  way.  We  might  say  that 
the  subject  would  not  know  itself,  if  remaining  always 
that  one  and  selfsame  subject,  it  were  not  both  subject 
and  object  to  itself. 

Consciousness  implies  this  self-alteration  of  the  sub- 
ject, which  by  placing  itself  as  an  object  in  front  of 
itself  realises  itself,  it  being  real  only  as  self-conscious- 
ness. This  is  the  import  of  the  identity  of  the  two 
terms,  subject  and  object;  or  of  the  difference  intrinsic 
to  the  one,  which  is  but  another  way  of  stating  it.  We 
may  insist  as  much  as  we  want  on  the  identity  of  the 
"I,"  but  it  will  always  be  true  that  this  'T"  is  real 
only  in  virtue  of  its  intrinsic  difference.  And  con- 
versely we  may  insist,  as  it  is  more  often  done,  on  the 
difference  between  the  subjective  moment  of  the  "I," 
whereby  the  "I"  is  set  in  opposition  to  all  its  objects, 
and  the  objective  moment  in  which  the  ego  vanishes. 
But  behind  the  difference,  identity  is  always  to  be 
found.  Man,  the  more  he  thinks,  the  more  he  alters 
himself,  the  more  objective  that  reality  becomes  which 
he  realises  by  self-consciousness,  the  more  fully  he  sees 
the  variation,  the  development,  the  growth,  the  en- 
hancement of  the  object — the  world  he  knows. 

The  spirit's  being  is  its  alteration.  The  more  it  is, 
— that  is,  the  more  it  becomes,  the  more  it  lives, — the 
more  difficult  it  is  for  it  to  recognise  itself  in  the 
object.  It  might  therefore  be  said  that  he  who  in- 
creases his  knowledge  also  increases  his  ignorance,  if 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  229 

he  is  unable  to  trace  this  knowledge  back  to  its  origin, 
and  if  the  spirit's  rally  does  not  induce  him  to  redis- 
cover himself  at  the  bottom  of  the  object,  which  has 
been  allowed  to  alter  and  alienate  itself  more  and  more 
from  the  secret  source  of  its  own  becoming.  Thus  it 
happens,  as  was  said  of  old,  that  "He  that  increaseth 
knowledge  increaseth  sorrow."  All  human  sorrow  pro- 
ceeds from  our  incapacity  to  recognise  ourselves  in  the 
object,  and  consequently  to  feel  our  own  infinite  liberty. 

Subject  then  and  object,  and  in  their  synthesis,  in 
their  living  unity,  the  spirit,  which  therefore  is  neither 
a  subject  standing  against  an  object,  nor  its  opposite. 
The  two  terms,  each  one  for  itself,  isolated,  are  equiv- 
alent. But  every  time  human  thought  has  isolated 
them,  whether  striving  to  conceive  itself,  its  own  spir- 
itual substance,  objectively  (God),  or  as  a  simple  sub- 
ject (a  particular  man),  it  has  ever  reached  most 
desperate  conclusions,  now  totally  blocking  its  way 
to  the  comprehension  and  justification  of  its  own  sub- 
jectivity, and  now  secluding  itself  in  an  abstract  sub- 
jectivity, removed  from  all  which  man  theoretically 
and  practically  needs  in  order  to  live.  The  reality 
of  the  spirit  is  not  in  the  subject  as  opposed  to  the 
object,  but  in  the  subject  that  has  in  itself  the  object 
as  its  actuality. 

It  is  on  account  of  this  inseverable  unity,  by  which 
the  subject  presses  to  itself  the  object  and  becomes 
actual  therein,  that  the  progressive  alteration  of  the 


230  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

object  is  also  the  progressive  alteration  of  the  subject. 
At  every  given  moment,  the  subject,  altered  as  it  is, 
made  into  the  "other"  or  determined,  is  yet  pure  sub- 
ject, and  nothing  else  than  the  subject  which  becomes 
conscious  of  itself,  and  therefore  actual  by  determining 
itself  as  subject  of  its  object,  in  such  a  way  that  the 
subject  as  well  as  the  object  is  always  new  and  always 
different.  Not  because  it  is  now  one  subject  and  now 
another,  in  which  case  succession  and  enumeration 
would  import  multiplicity,  and  would  therefore  reduce 
the  spirit  to  a  thing;  but  because  it  appears  and  can- 
not but  appear  thus,  if  observed  from  the  point  of  view 
which  distinguishes  one  individual  from  another,  and  in 
the  same  individual  one  instant  from  the  next,  al- 
though from  a  rigorously  idealistic  point  of  view  the 
spirit  is  one,  and  its  determinateness  does  not  detract 
from  its  absolute  originality. 

This  dialectic  in  which  the  spiritual  becoming  un- 
folds itself  (subject,  object,  and  unity  of  subject  and 
object),  this  self -objectifying  or  self -estrangement  aim- 
ing at  self -attainment, — this  is  the  eternal  life  of  the 
spirit,  which  creates  its  immortal  forms,  and  deter- 
mines the  ideal  contents  of  culture  and  education.  The 
spirit's  self-realisation  is  the  realisation  of  the  subject, 
of  the  object,  and  of  their  relationship.  If  of  these 
three  terms  (the  third  being  the  synthesis  of  the  first 
and  second)  any  one  should  fail,  the  spiritual  reality 
would  cease  to  be. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  231 

This  threefold  realisation  admits  empirically  of  a 
separation  that  makes  it  possible  to  have  one  without 
the  others.  On  the  strength  of  this  triple  division 
we  speak  of  art,  of  religion,  and  of  philosophy,  as 
though  each  one  of  them  could  subsist  by  itself.  So 
that  commonly  people  believe  that  it  is  possible  to  be  a 
poet  without  in  any  way  burdening  one's  mind  with 
religion  or  philosophy, — especially  philosophy,  which 
appears  to  be  the  bugbear  of  most  poets.  In  the  same 
way  many  philosophers,  and  among  them  one  of  the 
very  greatest,  held  art  to  be  the  negation  of  philosophy, 
to  the  point  that  it  should  be  banished  from  the  king- 
dom where  the  latter  was  expected  to  reign.  And 
how  often  has  religion  taken  up  arms,  now  against 
poetry,  and  now  against  speculation!  All  of  these 
occurrences  were  possible  because  the  three  terms  were 
looked  upon  as  separable,  as  though  they  were 
three  material  things,  each  one  of  which  could  be 
what  it  was  only  on  condition  that  it  excluded  the 
others. 

A  superficial  understanding  of  the  differences  in- 
tervening between  these  three  terms  is  the  reason  why 
they  are  often  looked  upon  as  separable.  But  in  real- 
ity they  are  so  indissolubly  conjoined,  that  separation 
would  destroy  their  spiritual  character,  and  put  in  its 
place  mechanism,  which  is  the  property  of  all  that  is 
not  spirit. 

Art  is  the  self-realisation  of  the  spirit  as  subject. 


232  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

Man  becomes  enfolded  in  his  subjectivity,  and  hears 
but  the  voice  of  love  or  other  inward  summons.  Liv- 
ing without  communication  with  the  world,  he  re- 
frains from  affirming  and  denying  what  exists  and  what 
does  not  exist.  He  simply  spreads  out  over  his  own 
abstract  interior  world,  and  dreams;  and  as  he  dreams, 
he  escapes  from  the  outer  bustle  into  the  seclusion  of 
his  enchanted  realm,  which  is  true  in  itself  until  he 
issues  from  it  and  discovers  it  to  be  a  figment  of  his 
phantasy.  This  man  is  the  artist,  who,  we  might  say, 
neither  cognises  nor  acts,  but  sings. 

His  subjectivity  appears  empirically  to  us  always 
as  a  determined  subjectivity,  the  determination  of 
which  proceeds  from  the  object  in  which  the  spirit, 
theoretically  and  practically,  has  previously  objecti- 
fied itself.  But  this  priority  of  tlie  act,  by  which  the 
artist  is  considered  a  man  of  this  objective  world  be- 
fore he  withdraws  into  his  dreams,  is  a  mere  empirical 
appearance.  If  we  relied  on  it,  we  could  not  preserve 
to  the  spirit  in  its  artistic  life  that  originality  and 
autonomy,  that  absolute  spontaneity  and  freedom, 
which  is  the  essential  character  or,  as  we  called  it,  the 
attribute  of  spiritual  activity.  To  become  objective, 
the  spirit  must  first  be  subject;  and  in  front  of  the 
object  in  which  it  objectifies  itself,  it  again  inevitably 
becomes  subject, — an  ever  determined  one  indeed,  but 
nothing  else  than  a  subject.  That  is  why  the  con- 
temporary theory  of  aesthetics  holds  that  form  in  art 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  233 

absorbs  in  itself  the  content,  with  no  residuum.  It 
absorbs  it  qua  subjectivity;  for  whatever  the  object 
be  which  this  subjectivity,  empirically  considered,  has 
enwrapped,  it  draws  it  entirely  over  to  itself,  reassumes 
it,  and  as  pure  subjectivity  it  cannot  return  to  its  object 
without  passing  through  the  moment  of  its  opposition 
to  the  object, — the  moment  in  which  the  subject  is 
nothing  else  than  subject,  and  finds  in  itself  infinite 
gratification.  This  is  the  realm  of  art,  a  realm  from 
which  the  spirit,  in  consequence  of  the  very  function  of 
the  subject,  is  compelled  to  issue;  since  the  subject 
is  subject  in  that  it  issues  from  itself,  becomes  self- 
conscious,  objectifies  itself.  So  the  poet  as  he  dreams 
breathes  life  into  the  personages  of  his  dreams,  builds 
them  up,  and  gives  them  reality.  What  is  his  own  ab- 
stract subjectivity  he  chooses  as  a  world  in  which  he 
himself  may  live  absolutely;  and  the  ideas  which  ma- 
ture in  that  fantastic  world  of  his — which  is  nothing 
more,  as  I  have  said,  than  his  abstract  subjectivity — 
are  affirmed  by  him  without  any  reserves,  and  are  op- 
posed to  the  ideas  of  philosophers  and  of  men  who 
prefer  concrete  reality  to  phantasy. 

This  lyrical  bent,  peculiar  to  the  artist  who  en- 
hances himself  by  exalting  his  own  abstract  individu- 
ality, is  in  direct  contrast  with  the  tendency  of  the 
Saint,  who  crushes  and  annihilates  this  same  individu- 
ality in  the  face  of  his  God, — that  God  who  infinitely 
occupies  his  consciousness  as  the  "other"  in  absolute 


234  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

alterity  to  him,  so  that  the  subject  is  hurled  into  the 
object  in  a  total  self-abstraction.  It  sinks  in  the  con- 
templation of  its  own  self  in  its  objective  "otherness," 
of  itself  become  the  other,  in  which  it  no  longer  rec- 
ognises itself.  So  he  deifies  this  other  self,  places 
it  on  the  altar,  and  kneels  before  it.  Thus  the  saint's 
personality  is  nullified;  or  rather,  it  is  actualised  and 
realised  in  this  self-annulment,  which  is  the  theoretical 
and  practical  characteristic  of  mysticism  and  the  spe- 
cific act  of  religion. 

It  is  not  possible  to  tear  art  from  the  spirit's  life, 
in  as  much  as  it  could  not  be  the  synthesis  it  actually 
is  without  being  subjectivity.  It  is  equally  impos- 
sible for  the  spirit  to  be  completely  devoid  of  relig- 
iosity. The  mystic  flower  of  faith  grows  out  of  the 
bosom  of  art, — a  faith  in  an  object  which  draws  the  soul 
to  itself  and  conquers  it.  The  life  of  the  spirit  is  an 
eternal  crossing  from  art  to  religion,  from  the  subject 
to  the  object.  It  is  impossible  for  the  artist  to  realise 
his  art  in  unalloyed  purity,  since  his  world,  the  world 
he  has  created  for  himself,  is  nevertheless  the  bigger 
world,  out  of  which,  empirically  speaking,  he  is  driven 
only  by  the  needs  of  practical  life,  which  awaken  him 
and  remind  him  of  the  existence  of  a  wider  world.  In 
the  same  way  it  is  impossible  to  realise  a  pure  religion 
in  which  the  subject  completely  and  effectually  might 
annihilate  itself.  For  in  the  measure  that  faith  in- 
creases in  intensity,  and  the  sentiment  of  one's  own 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  235 

nothingness  grows  deeper,  and  the  idea  that  the  object 
is  all  becomes  more  obsessing,  in  that  same  measure  the 
energy  of  the  spirit  increases,  of  the  spirit  as  the  sub- 
ject that  has  been  powerful  enough  to  create  this  situa- 
tion. Altars  must  be  built  in  order  that  people  may 
kneel  in  front  of  them.  The  concept  of  God,  it,  too,  has 
a  history.  And  from  this  history  no  word  can  be  taken 
away  on  the  assumption  that  it  was  immediately  re- 
vealed.  For  there  is  no  word  which  pre-exists  as  such 
before  the  act  of  him  who  cognises  it.  And  to  fix  a 
dogma,  that  is,  to  rescue  it  from  the  flow  of  evolution, 
we  should  have  to  withdraw  from  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion the  men  themselves  who  are  to  accept  it. 

Nothing  therefore  is  more  impious  than  the  history 
of  religion,  in  the  course  of  which  man,  now  dragging 
his  God  dowm  to  the  depths  of  his  apparent  misery, 
now  lifting  him  to  the  heights  of  his  real  greatness, 
progresses  from  station  to  station  along  the  unending 
way  of  sorrows  and  joys.  The  process  of  mental  de- 
velopment shows  unwittingly,  by  the  very  acts  of  man's 
innocent  piety,  that  God  is  his  God,  that  the  life  of  the 
object  is  the  same  as  the  life  of  the  subject. 

The  nature  then  both  of  art  and  of  religion  implies 
a  flagrant  contradiction  which  comes  to  this, — that  the 
subject  to  be  subject  is  object,  and  the  object  to  be 
object  is  subject.  Hence  the  torments  of  the  poet  and 
the  spasms  of  the  mystic.  A  perfect  art  and  a  perfect 
religion,  that  is,  art  which  is  not  religion,  and  religion 


236  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

which  is  not  art,  are  two  impossibihties.  This  does 
not  mean  that  either  art  or  religion  can  ever  be  super- 
seded and  left  behind  as  two  illusions,  ancient  and 
constant,  if  we  will,  but  none  the  less  devoid  of  all 
value.  The  very  contrary  of  this  is  true.  Just  be- 
cause there  is  no  pure  art,  religion  is  eternal;  and  art 
is  eternal,  because  religion  cannot  be  attained  in  its 
absolute  purity. 

The  concrete  spirit  is  neither  subject  nor  object.  It 
is  a  self-objectifying  subject,  and  an  object  which 
becomes  the  subject  in  virtue  of  the  subjectivity  that 
alights  on  it  as  it  realises  it.  The  spirit  is  therefore 
a  becoming.  It  is  the  synthesis,  the  unity  of  these 
two  opposites,  ever  in  conflict  and  yet  always  intimately 
joined.  And  the  spirit,  as  this  unity,  is  the  concreteness 
both  of  art  (reality  of  the  abstract  subject)  and  of 
religion  (reality  of  the  abstract  object).  It  is  philoso- 
phy. Many  definitions  have  been  given  of  philosophy, 
and  all  of  them  true,  because  directly  or  indirectly 
they  may,  on  the  strength  of  what  is  expressed  or 
what  is  understood,  be  reduced  to  the  following  defini- 
tion: that  philosophy  is  the  spirit.  If  we  say  that  it 
is  the  science  of  the  spirit,  we  indulge  in  a  useless 
pleonasm.  For  science,  unless  we  distinguish  in  an 
absolute  manner  (which  is  impossible)  one  grade  of 
determinateness  from  the  other,  is  the  same  as  con- 
sciousness; and  spirit  is,  as  we  have  seen,  self-con- 
sciousness.    If  we  say  that  philosophy  is  the  science 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  237 

of  reality  in  its  universality,  we  lose  sight  of  the  fact 
that  reality,  for  those  who  do  not  stray  off  into  the 
maze  of  abstractness,  is  the  spirit.  A  definition  which 
has  never  lost  its  value  is  that  one  which  makes 
philosophy  consist  in  the  elaboration  of  concepts,  that 
is,  in  the  unification  of  all  the  concepts  (those  we  pos- 
sess, of  course)  into  a  coherent  concept.  This  is  an 
excellent  definition,  and  it  warns  us  that  philosophy 
is  not  obtained  by  stopping  before  abstractions^  no 
matter  what  these  abstractions  may  be.  All  particu- 
lar things  are  abstractions,  each  one  of  which  yields 
a  concept,  and  all  of  them  give  a  number  of  concepts, 
which  must  be  brought  together  and  unified,  if  we  ever 
intend  to  think  all  things  that  are  thought,  and  thus 
philosophise.  The  subject  without  the  object  as  the 
artist  wants  it  is  an  abstraction  ;  and  similarly  abstract 
is  the  object  which  religion  looks  up  to. 

We  are  accustomed,  not  without  reason,  to  distin- 
guish the  life  of  the  spirit  from  philosophy.  But  the 
reason,  instead  of  destroying,  confirms  the  identity 
between  spirit  and  philosophy,  and  for  the  following 
cause.  The  spirit  never  being  what  it  ought  to  be, 
we  live  acquiring  consciousness  of  ourselves.  But  when 
we  pause  to  ask  ourselves  if  we  have  really  obtained 
this  consciousness,  and  turn  to  our  life  as  to  the 
subject-matter  of  this  problem,  which  is  the  problem 
of  philosophy,  we  discover  that  we  cannot  answer  in 
the  affirmative.     For  answering  is  spiritual  living,  a 


238  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

living,  therefore,  which  consists  not  in  having  self- 
consciousness  but  in  acquiring  it.  So  that  philosophy 
does  not  arise  from  the  need  of  understanding  the  Hfe 
already  lived,  for  the  past  is  the  realm  of  death;  but 
rather  from  the  much  keener  desire  of  living,  of  leading 
a  better  life,  a  true  life,  and  of  finally  realising  this 
spiritual  reality  which  is  our  ideal.     But  when? 

Can  we  believe  that  there  is  ever  going  to  be  a 
philosophy  which  will  definitely  fulfil  the  ideal?  It 
is  obvious  that  a  pursuit  of  such  philosophy  would 
lead  the  spirit  into  a  race  to  death;  whereas  on  the 
contrary  the  spirit  is  life;  it  is  an  impulse  to  ever  more 
intense  living. 

This  philosophy,  it  is  evident,  is  not  the  exclusive, 
esoteric  classroom  discipline,  the  professional  privilege 
of  a  few  specialists.  It  is  rather  the  source  from 
which  this  professional  speculation  derives  its  right 
to  address  all  men  who  have  an  exalted  sentiment  of 
their  human  dignity,  who  hearken  to  the  deeper  utter- 
ances of  their  souls,  who  are  able  to  see  how  much  of 
their  own  self  there  is  in  this  vast  world  which  is  being 
disclosed  to  their  eyes;  who,  even  though  vaguely  and 
timidly,  are  conscious  of  the  divine  power  that  resides 
in  every  human  heart;  who  feel  that  this  human  heart, 
prone  though  it  be  to  all  baseness,  is  also  capable  of 
lifting  itself  to  the  most  sublime  heights,  and  of  en- 
joying the  pure  and  lofty  satisfactions  which  human 
phantasy  ordinarily  relegates  to  heaven.     In  the  depths 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  239 

of  every  mind  there  is  a  philosophy:  the  mind  itself  is 
untiring  speculation,  which  more  or  less  successfully 
scales  the  height,  but  which  is  always  turned  upward 
to  the  summit  whitened  by  the  rising  sun.  Life  is 
made  human  by  the  rays  of  this  philosophy.  Man  is 
really  man  when  he  recognises  an  object  which  is  the 
world,  reality,  law,  and  when  he  recalls  that  nothing 
absolves  him  from  the  duty  of  being  in  this  world; 
of  seriously  being  in  it,  which  means  working  and  co- 
operating towards  reality  by  knowing  reality  and  ful- 
filling the  law.  For  in  his  freedom  and  power  he  can 
never  divest  himself  of  his  own  responsibility;  he  must 
therefore  develop  his  capacity  to  the  utmost  value,  and 
to  that  end  work  and  work,  think,  and  act  as  the  centre 
of  his  world.  This  philosophy  does  not  allow  him 
either  to  withdraw  into  the  abstract  retirement  of  his 
egoistic  self,  or  to  deny  and  sacrifice  this  self  to  an 
imaginary  reality.  This  philosophy  is  never  finished, 
never  completed,  for  it  is  his  own  spirit,  his  very  self, 
which  to  live  must  grow,  and  which  must  constitute 
itself  as  it  develops.  And  therefore  this  philosophy 
cannot  help  being  man's  ideal,  which  is  always  being 
realised  and  which  is  never  fulfilled. 

So,  then,  education,  which  aims  at  that  concrete  and 
truly  real  unity  which  is  the  life  of  the  spirit,  must 
always  be  moral,  always  spiritual,  always  philosophic. 
An  invidious  word,  perhaps,  for  those  who  have  had 
the  misfortune  to  fall  into  the  mean  and  vulgar  habit 


240  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

of  grinning  and  scoffing  in  retaliation  for  the  unsparing 
censure  inflicted  by  the  ideal  on  sloth,  presumption, 
and  cowardice.  We  might  perhaps  replace  this  word 
by  "integral,"  excepting  that  this  adjective  is  generic 
and  therefore  inappropriate. 

I  must  add,  however,  that  in  speaking  of  philosophic 
education,  I  do  not  mean  any  special  course  in  phi- 
losophy. Though  I  believe  that  special  philosophical 
training  has  an  essential  function  in  the  curriculum  of 
secondary  schools  which  aim  to  prepare  and  direct 
towards  higher  studies  a  matured  mentality,  scien- 
tifically trained  and  humanly  inspired,  I  yet  hold  that 
this  special  philosophical  training  can  be  effectual  only 
if  all  education,  from  its  very  beginning,  wherever  that 
may  be,  has  been  philosophic.  We  must  reflect  that 
just  as  it  is  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  moral  only  at 
certain  hours  of  the  day,  and  in  certain  particular 
places,  morality  being  the  atmosphere  without  which 
the  spirit  cannot  live,  so  that  ethical  teaching  is  dis- 
torted and  deflected  as  soon  as  it  is  relegated  to  cer- 
tain definite  books,  to  be  studied  in  connection  with 
certain  definite  courses;  in  the  same  way  this  philos- 
ophy which  is  for  us  the  ideal  content  of  education, 
and  therefore  its  ideal,  cannot  but  be  present  in  every 
real  educative  act,  cannot  help  reflecting  itself  in  every 
throb  it  gives  to  the  soul  of  the  pupil.  This  general 
philosophic  education  naturally  includes  art  and  re- 
ligion, which  cannot  be  limited  subject-matters  of  spe- 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  241 

dal  courses  of  instruction,  co-ordinated  or  subordinated 
to  the  other  elements  of  the  curriculum. 

Only  the  particular  sciences,  that  is,  the  sciences 
properly  so  called,  may  be  freely  moved  in  a  student's 
schedule  ;  they  may  be  added  or  taken  away,  they  may 
be  grouped  this  or  that  way,  and  be  variously  dis- 
tributed in  accordance  with  the  needs  of  the  moment 
and  the  particular  exigencies  of  the  student  or  of  man 
in  general.  For  these  sciences  reflect  in  themselves 
the  fragmentary  multiplicity  of  things  which  have  been 
abstractly  cut  off  from  the  centre  of  the  spirit,  to  which 
however  they  too  refer.  And  because  they  do  refer 
to  it,  the  teaching  of  them  should  be  spiritualised,  mor- 
ahsed,  humanised;  it  ought  to  acquire  the  concreteness 
of  philosophy,  and  therefore  never  ignore  the  exigen- 
cies of  art  and  of  religion.  For  otherwise  it  will  be 
merely  material  instruction,  "informative  education," 
which  in  reality  is  no  education  at  all. 

During  the  Revival  of  Learning  education  was 
humanistic.  Its  ideal  was  art.  The  historical  life 
which  corresponded  to  this  ideal  was  the  individualism 
of  our  Italian  Renaissance.  After  the  Counter  Re- 
formation, art,  which  is  individuality  in  abstract  sub- 
jectivity, was  abandoned  to  itself,  and  inevitably  de- 
cayed in  the  cult  of  Hfeless  form;  it  became  barren  in 
the  imitations  of  classical  art  considered  as  final  perfec- 
tion, to  which  the  individual  might  raise  himself  but 
beyond  which  he  could  not  possibly  proceed.     Art 


242  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

became  thus  the  negation  of  originality,  and  of  that 
subjective  autonomy  of  which  it  naturally  should  be 
the  most  enhancing  expression.  So  that  classicism  up 
to  the  Romantic  Revolt  remained  the  cultural  form 
of  a  society  submissive  to  the  principle  of  authority 
and  religiously  oriented.  These  conditions  favoured 
the  study  of  the  science  of  nature,  which  to  the  extent 
that  it  is  governed  by  the  naturalistic  principle  is  a 
manifestation  of  religiosity.  The  devotee  of  natural 
science  speaks  in  fact  of  his  Nature  with  an  agnostic 
reverence  similar  to  that  professed  by  the  saint  in  the 
worship  of  God.  Nature,  which  alone  he  knows, 
becomes  the  object  before  which  the  subject,  Man, 
disappears.  But  as  science  progresses,  the  need  of 
shaking  the  principle  of  authority  makes  itself  felt; 
the  accepted  truths  of  nature  are  subjected  to  criticism; 
the  power  of  doubting  is  reintroduced,  and  the  subject 
again  reasserts  itself.  So  the  advancement  of  natural 
science  has  gradually  turned  humanity  away  from  the 
shrines  of  naturalistic  science.  When  naturalism  op- 
posed the  claims  of  religion,  it  ceased  to  be  the  science 
of  nature,  and  became  philosophy.  This  influenced  the 
scientific  spirit  in  its  clash  with  religious  dogmas,  and 
restored  to  it  the  consciousness  of  the  moment  of  sub- 
jectivity which  had  been  forgotten.  The  ideal  of  cul- 
ture, which  prevailed  in  the  nineteenth  century  with  the 
triumph  of  positivism,  was  science,  naturalism,  and 
therefore  religion.    It  is  now  high  time  that  the  two 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  243 

opposed  elements  be  joined  and  united,  and  that  the 
school  be  neither  abstractly  humanistic  in  the  pursuit 
of  Art  nor  abstractly  religious  and  scientific,  but  that  it 
be  made  what  it  is  ideally,  and  what  it  is  also  in  prac- 
tice when  it  efficaciously  educates — the  philosophic 
school. 

As  each  one  has  a  different  path  to  follow  in  this 
world,  each  one  will  accordingly  have  his  own  edu- 
cation. But  all  paths  converge  to  one  point,  where 
we  all  gather  to  lead  in  common  that  universal  life 
which  alone  makes  us  men.  And  as  we  meet  at  this 
centre,  we  must  understand  each  other,  and  should 
be  able  therefore  to  speak  the  same  language,  the 
language  of  the  spirit.  We  are  compelled  by  an  ir- 
resistible need  to  live  this  common  hfe,  and  together  to 
constitute  one  sole  spirit.  But  this  end  we  shall  never 
attain  if  man,  who  ought  to  be  entire  and  complete, 
acts  as  a  mere  fragment, — such  fragment,  for  example, 
as  the  aesthete,  or  the  superstitious  worshipper,  or  the 
star  gazer,  always  unaware  of  the  pit  under  his  feet. 
If  we  continue  in  this  state,  in  which  one  man  clings  to 
the  superstition  of  mathematics,  another  idolises  en- 
tomology, a  third  worships  physics,  and  so  on  in- 
definitely, if  man  insists  on  fencing  off  his  little  piece 
of  this  "thrashing-floor  that  makes  us  cruel,"  knowing 
no  other  man  but  himself,  feeling  no  needs  other  than 
his  own,  then  war  will  break  out.    Not  a  disciplined 


244  THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION 

war,  governed  by  a  law,  by  an  idea,  by  reason,  of 
which  it  is  the  life;  but  a  war  of  every  man  against  his 
brother, — the  anarchistic  uprising,  the  disintegration 
of  the  spirit,  and  the  stern  suffering  which  is  true 
misery. 

The  dislike  for  the  purus  mathematicus  ^  is  tradi- 
ditional.  But  whether  he  be  a  mathematician,  or  a 
priest,  or  an  economist,  or  a  dentist,  or  a  poet,  or  a 
street  cleaner,  man  as  a  fragment  of  humanity  is  a 
nuisance. 

We  want  mathematics,  but  we  want  it  in  the  man. 
And  the  same  for  religion,  economics,  poetry,  and  all 
the  rest.  Otherwise  we  suffocate,  and  die  stifled.  For 
all  these  are  things,  but  there  is  no  life;  and  things  op- 
press us  and  kill  us.  Therefore  let  us  spiritualise 
things  by  reviving  the  spirit.  Let  us  release  it,  that 
it  may  freely  move  in  the  organic  unity  of  nature.  Let 
us  train  it  so  that  its  strength,  agility,  balance,  and 
all  around  development  shall  be  able  to  control  all  its 
dependent  functions,  which  can  be  successfully  carried 
on  only  on  condition  that  they  agree,  and  collaborate 
toward  common  life.    And  this  is  what  I  call  philosophy. 

Or  we  may  call  it  humanity,  if  the  word  philosophy 
suggests  strangeness  and  difficulty  of  attainment.  For 
our  demand  for  an  educational  reform,  in  accordance 
with  our  renewed  consciousness,  is  prompted  by  the  old 

1  Referring  to  the  old  plirase,  purus  mathematicus,  purus 
a8inu8. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  EDUCATION  245 

but  never  ancient  desire  which  put  the  lantern  in  the 
hand  of  the  Greek  philosopher.  Education  is  truly 
human  when  it  has  for  its  contents  that  ideal  which  I 
have  briefly  touched  upon  in  this  chapter,  the  ideal 
of  the  spirit,  philosophy. 


CHAPTER  XI 

CONCLUSION 

We  may  look  upon  the  preceding  chapters  as  a  kind 
of  general  examination  to  which  we  submitted  our 
consciences,  by  reflecting  on  the  way  we  have  always 
performed  our  duty  as  teachers,  by  considering  our 
purposes,  and  by  scrutinising  the  internal  logic  of  our 
task.  And  our  investigation  has  been  eminently  hu- 
man, since  indeed  man's  essence,  we  have  now  come 
to  understand,  is  to  acquire  self-consciousness. 

The  patriotic  character  of  the  event  which  was  the 
immediate  cause  of  this  work  induced  me  to  show  that 
the  common  spirit  which  brought  us  together  was  not 
a  mere  political  sentiment,  of  which  we  should  rid  our- 
selves in  crossing  the  threshold  of  the  school.  For 
we  could  not  but  bring  into  the  classroom  our  own 
humanity  and  our  living  personality,  in  which  the  con- 
tent of  our  teaching  and  of  all  education  must  live. 
This  personality,  however  it  may  be  considered,  from 
whatever  point  of  view  it  may  be  regarded,  has  no 
particular  substance  which  is  not  also  at  the  same  time 
universal, — domestic  as  the  case  may  be,  or  social, 
political,  or  whatever  may  be  the  phase  in  which  it  is 
determined  in  its  historical  development.     And  since, 

246 


CONCLUSION  247 

in  this  historical  development  of  our  universal  per- 
sonality, there  is  Italy  with  her  memories  perpetuated 
by  our  immanent  sentiment,  by  our  immanent  con- 
sciousness and  by  our  immanent  will,  we  could  not 
possibly  be  ourselves  were  we  not  at  the  same  time 
Italian  educators. 

And  looking  attentively  at  this  universal  foundation 
on  which  our  own  human  value  is  supported — call  it 
language,  logic,  law, — we  were  led  to  study  the  rela- 
tionship existing  between  individuality,  which  is  the 
aim  of  all  forms  of  education,  and  this  universal  spirit 
which  here  intervenes  as  it  does  in  every  moment  of 
the  human  life.  It  intervenes  in  education,  as  the 
science  and  the  conscience  and  the  entire  personality 
of  the  teacher.  This  personality  seems  to  be  violently 
imposed  upon  the  pupil  in  such  a  way  as  to  check  or 
hinder  his  spontaneous  development;  but  we  saw  that 
the  immediate  logical  opposition  between  teacher  and 
learner  gradually  resolves  itself  into  the  unity  of  the 
spiritual  process  in  which  education  becomes  actual. 

Education  therefore  appeared  to  us,  not  as  a  fact 
which  is  empirically  observable,  and  which  may  be 
fixed  and  looked  upon  as  subject  to  natural  laws,  but 
rather  as  a  mystical  formation  of  a  super-individual 
spirituality,  which  is  the  only  real,  concrete  person- 
ality actualised  by  the  individual.  In  order  to  under- 
stand it,  we  had  to  liberate  it  from  every  kind  of  con- 
tact with  culture  in  its  materialistic  acceptance;  and 


248  CONCLUSION 

we  therefore  insisted  on  the  speculative  inquiry  into 
what  we  called  the  realistic  point  of  view.     We  en- 
deavoured to  explain  how  and  why  culture  is  the  very 
process  of  education,  and  the  very  process  of  the  per- 
sonality in  which  education  takes  place.     This  con- 
ception would  have  lacked  the  necessary  support,  had 
we  not  carried  our  investigation  further,  and  shown 
that  this  culture  in  which  the  spirit  unfolds  itself  is  not 
the  attribute  of  a  mind  existing  amidst  other  minds 
and  face  to  face  with  surrounding  nature,  but  is  instead 
the  most  genuine  signification  of  All.     For  it  is  the 
life  of  the  spirit  in  which  everything  gathers  to  find  its 
support  and  become  thinkable.    Man,  as  he  is  edu- 
cated, is  man  rigorously  considered  as  spirit, — spirit 
which  is  free,  because  infinite  and  truly  universal  in 
every  one  of  its  moments  and  attitudes.     This  the  edu- 
cator must  intently  consider  if  he  wants  to  conceive 
adequately  his  task  and  its  enormous  responsibilities, 
which  become  evident  when  he  reflects  how  in  the 
monad  of  the  individual,  in  the  simple  soul  of  the  child 
entrusted  to  his  creative  care,  the  infinite  vibrates,  and 
a  life  is  born  at  every  instant,  which  thence  throbs  over 
the  boundless  expanse  of  space,  of  time,  and  of  all 
reality. 

This  adequate  conception  need  not  be  elaborated 
into  a  complete  system  of  philosophy.  The  educator 
must  sense  and  grasp  this  infinite  over  which  every 
word  of  his  is  carried,  every  glance  of  his,  every  ges- 


CONCLUSION  249 

ture.  As  he  enters  the  classroom,  as  he  approaches 
the  child,  to  whom  not  only  magna  reverentia  is  due, 
but  the  very  cult  which  is  shown  to  things  divine,  he 
cannot  but  feel  himself  exalted;  he  cannot  but  be 
fully  conscious  of  the  difficulties  of  his  lofty  station, 
and  of  the  duty  of  overcoming  them.  He  must  there- 
fore dismiss  from  within  himself  all  that  is  petty  in  his 
particular  personality,  all  his  preoccupations  and  pas- 
sions, all  his  commonplace  everyday  thoughts.  He 
must  shake  off  the  depressing  burden  of  the  flesh,  which 
pulls  him  downward;  and  he  will  then  open  his  soul 
to  fortifying  Faith,  to  the  ruling  and  inspiring  Deity. 
The  man  who  is  not  capable  of  feeling  in  the  School  the 
sanctity  of  the  place  and  of  his  work  is  not  fit  to  be 
an  educator. 

The  spirituality  of  education  becomes  however  an 
empty  formula,  and  a  motif  for  rhetorical  variations, 
if  on  the  one  hand  we  do  not  possess  the  concept  of  the 
essence  or  of  the  attributes  of  the  spirit,  and  if  on  the 
other  we  do  not  sharply  expose  those  realistic  preju- 
dices of  pedagogy  which  have  been  maintained  in  the 
field  of  education  by  the  materialistic  conception  of 
man  and  by  a  tradition  which  is  both  unreflecting  and 
alien  to  all  radical  criticism.  I  tried  to  satisfy  both 
these  exigencies  rather  by  arousing  the  reflection  and 
impelling  it  on  its  way  than  by  escorting  it  on  a  jour- 
ney which  must  be  undertaken  with  due  preparation. 

And  finally,  in  the  effort  to  provide  ourselves  with 


250  CONCLUSION 

a  motto,  so  to  speak,  and  a  rallying  banner,  I  set  forth 
the  doctrine  of  educational  unity — of  the  education 
which  is  always  at  all  moments  education  of  the  spirit. 
For  even  physical  culture  is  conceivable  only  as  forma- 
tion of  the  mind,  and  more  properly  of  character. 
Education,  we  saw,  may  be  made  actual  in  a  thousand 
different  ways,  only  always  on  condition  that  we  ob- 
serve the  law  which  proceeds  from  its  innermost  es- 
sence and  constitutes  its  immanent  ideal.  'Every 
education  is  good,  provided  it  is  education — phi- 
losophical, human,  mind-stirring  education;  provided 
it  does  not  bring  atrophy  to  any  necessary  function 
of  the  spirit,  does  not  crush  the  spirit  under 
the  weight  either  of  things  or  of  the  divinity,  nor 
excessively  exalt  it  in  the  consciousness  of  its  own 
personal  power;  provided  it  neither  hurls  it  into  the 
free  abstract  world  of  dreams  nor  fetters  it  in  the  iron 
chains  of  an  inhuman  reality;  and  provided  it  does  not 
shatter  it  and  scatter  its  fragments  by  the  multiple 
investigations  of  things  innumerable,  the  knowledge 
of  which  can  never  bring  satisfaction.  For  it  is  the 
function  of  education  to  enable  the  centralising  unity 
of  the  reflective  spirit  to  become  articulate  and  varied 
through  the  multiplicity  of  life  and  of  experience,  which 
is  the  actuality  of  the  spirit  itself.  Opposition  to  all 
abstractions,  in  behalf  of  the  concrete  spirit  and  of 
liberty — that  is  our  educational  ideal. 


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